Tag Archives: Chengdu

Row, Row, Rowing Along in Chengdu

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We’ve chosen an unconventional lifestyle. As a part of the Foreign Service, we will move roughly every two years for the rest of Thad’s career. This tour happens to be in the middle of China, but the next one might be Brazil or Sweden or Cambodia. We just never know where we will land next. This means there will be no white picket fence or BBQs with the same neighbors each summer for years on end. (Okay, there currently is a white picket fence in Nampa, Idaho, which I am trying to sell in a terrible market. If you know anyone interested in a beautiful Victorian-style house with a wrap-around porch and gazebo at a super price, let me know!)

I’m okay with unconventional.

Yet another marker of ways we tend to color outside the lines was visible last week on our anniversary. While many people would celebrate with gifts of jewelry and flowers (which we have done in the past, and I will always be happy with bright, shiny things that come in small velvet boxes), this year the commemoration went in a slightly different direction.

For dinner, we have a few options in town. There are some Italian restaurants (I’m sure it is Italian with a Chinese twist), a steak-house or two and some very fancy Chinese places. We could have gone to any one of those establishment and enjoyed a lovely meal to mark the passage of time together, but instead, we thought we’d shake things up a bit, break out of the prescribed “anniversary” box.

We went to Hooters.

Yup, Hooters.

The fact that Chengdu has a Hooters is one that I still can’t really wrap my head around. I have no idea why they came here or how great business is for them, but this fine restaurant is just a couple of blocks from the consulate and we pass it on a daily basis, so we figured it was time to give the place a shot.

Hooters is not good.

I’ve not been to this feathery-friend themed restaurant in the US, so I can only speak for its appeal abroad, but I don’t need an owl’s wisdom to come to the conclusion we will not be going back. My dislike of the place has nothing to do with what I can only imagine are a typical wife’s list of complaints, like the boobs and butts and wings. I’m fine with all of that.

I wasn’t looking for class or refinement when the idea of Hooters for dinner was tossed around. I was looking for some decent Western food in a place that had an American-feel to it. I got neither. The chicken carbonara seemed like a good choice off the menu that evening, so I went that route, while Thad had the enchilada. With our orders in, we waited and chatted while listening to N*Sync, the Backstreet Boys, Katy Perry, Britany Spears and Christina Aguilera. (Okay, I was totally on board with the music part. Seriously. I am a sucker for pop music, so while we waited, I tapped my foot, bobbed my head and sang along quietly. I’ve got terrible taste in music, but I’ve come to terms with it, so you’ll have to as well.)

After waiting an inordinate amount of time for dinner to arrive, my chicken pasta was eventually presented. (I would crack a joke about having to go kill the chicken, but this is China and I may be circling closer to the truth than I want to admit on that one!) It came with two plates and forks, as even at Hooters, everything is served “family-style.” I waited a few minutes for Thad’s meal to arrive, but when it was still MIA as mine was quickly cooling, I dug in. It was…meh. It was…okay. It was…nothing to write home about. (Apparently, it was something to write a blog about though.) I believe there were all of two pieces of chicken and the pasta was definitely not western-style pasta and I was thrown by the inclusion of carrots in the dish, but overall, it was edible. It was not the great dish of creamy pasta I had been hoping for, but it was tolerable.

Eventually, after I had finished probably half of my meal, Thad’s enchilada arrived, cut into pieces, to be served to a group, rather than one person. It was as if his mom had cut his dinner into bite-sized bits for him. I think his enchilada was more disappointing than my pasta, as the meat was sweet and most of the ingredients off just a bit. The high point of the enchilada was probably the sour cream. When sour cream becomes the high point of any meal, it is time to stop and reevaluate the menu.

So, the food wasn’t great, but the quirkiness of the evening didn’t end there. While we were *enjoying* our meal, one of the customers at a nearby table was apparently celebrating his birthday that evening. In a rush of orange hot-pants, tight t-shirts and a whole lot of clapping, an entire parliament of waitresses arrived to sing for him. The traditional “Happy Birthday” was out, as it is in many restaurants due to royalty issues, but most places come up with their own little ditty to replace the song whose singing officially means you are a year older. Not the Hooters’ waitresses though. They busted (yes, I went with “busted” as my verb of choice) out into a lively rendition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

That’s right! I was lucky to be sitting with my back to the birthday boy, so I didn’t have to exert nearly the same self-control as Thad did, who was looking right at the nursery rhyme debacle. I giggled to my heart’s content while he watched in fascination as a song generally reserved for being sung in rounds on long car trips to the general annoyance of all adults present became the go-to song for an international restaurant business specializing in all things owl. (It is all about the owl there, right?)

Dinner was done and the bill so paid, so when the bejeweled top hats came out and the waitresses began a country line dance to a 50’s jazz song, we figured it was time to call it a night.

Conventional wasn’t what we were looking for as we celebrated our anniversary in Chengdu and conventional is definitely not what we got. As I look down the road to the various holidays and birthdays that we will be celebrating here in the land of pandas over the next two years, I think I can safely say none of them will include a rousing rendition of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”

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Surviving as a Supertaster in China

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I have the taste-buds of a five-year old. I’ll admit it, not because I’m dying to let the world in on my terrible eating habits, but because there is no point in trying to conceal the fact that when refined palates were being handed out in Heaven, I must have been trying to decide which pair of heels would look the best in my celestial yearbook photo, posing by the Pearly Gates. (Do I go with something pearlescent, to bring out the shine of the entrance to eternity or would a bold, jewel color be better? These are the questions I imagine I was pondering while others were given a love for expensive liquor and well-marinated meats.)

Each morning, I happily pack a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple (or banana if I’m feeling wild!) and some type of treat, whether it be a precious Jell-o pudding cup or just a cookie, for my lunch. This is the same mid-day meal I have been eating since I was a fourth grader. (First through third grade lunches consisted of a Tupperware bowl of Lucky Charms and a twenty-five cent carton of milk, deftly combined in my elementary school lunchroom to put some calories in my scrawny stick-bug-like body before running out to swing upside down on the monkey bars.)  I’m more than content with the contents of this possibly juvenile lunch, not only because it is super yummy, but because the mere fact that I have the peanut butter to make a sandwich each day for lunch in the smack middle of China still amazes me!

My extremely unsophisticated sense of taste is both a slight bane and a helpful quirk for Thad. As someone willing to give any food a shot and as a particular fan of the spicy treats, my overactive taste buds often lead us away from some of the choices he might make if he were on his own. Hotpot always has to be the half-and-half bowls, on the exciting nights we go for pizza, pepperoni as about as crazy as it gets and my cooking repertoire consist of a lot of simple pasta dishes, sauce on the side.  However, the very thick silver-lining on the supertaster cloud is that I am a cheap date! There is no need to take me out to a posh restaurant for an expensive cut of steak or search Chengdu for a slice of fancy-pants cheese. I’m just as content with a plain hamburger (and by plain, I mean plain- just the burger and the bun) and a fountain drink Pepsi.

They Might Be Giants may consider super tasting to be a super power, but in the bi-yearly nomadic lifestyle we have undertaken, it does cause some problems.  One of the most outstanding of these rears its ugly head first thing every morning, when breakfast is to be served. Where’s the cereal? Of all the “American” foods I missed the most when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, my morning bowl of cereal was right there at the top of the list. There is no better way to start a morning than with a nice big bowl of some crunchy flakes or rings or stars, drenched in low-fat milk, being consumed as I catch up on the latest world news via CNN.com and the latest fashion faux pas via People.com.

While we were over the moon about Thad’s placement in Chengdu on his Flag Day, I knew instantly that the cereal issue was one I must remedy before returning to the Land of Pandas. With this in mind, I hit up Costco and bought what felt like a whole lot (but now I question the amount) of Cheerios in “family-sized” boxes.  Those crates are still in transit (I’m told they may hit Shanghai on August 11th, and then have to come overland to Chengdu, so, I’m mentally shooting for a Labor Day delivery.) To bridge the gap between our China arrival in May and my much needed cereal fix’s arrival in September, I’ve supplemented whenever the occasion has arisen.

Cornflakes are the most ubiquitous and cheapest cereal in town. (There are a few other options of imported cereal available but they tend to come in very small, very smashed boxes that cost anywhere from $5-10USD.) I can do cornflakes. So, whenever I was in a store that had them, I was buying a box or two.

Then, I had a few things I needed to order from Amazon.com, like scooter helmets, so with each order, I just added on a couple boxes of sugary goodness. I figured I’d already hit the $25 free shipping amount, so I may as well take advantage of the savings!  Here some Corn Pops, there some Lucky Charms, everywhere a little Fruit Loops…You get the idea.

Early July rolled around and an anniversary package from my parents arrived, which included a bag of Marshmallow Mateys. What a great addition to the cereal stash.

Oh, and then, as part of my job at the consulate, I submitted an order to the Beijing Commissary for our officers, so I figured along with Thad’s desired pickles and Cheetos, I may as well order a couple of boxes of Wheat Chex.

And then, knowing I have this underlying need for a daily breakfast cereal fix, but not knowing the extent of our current stockpile, my dear husband ordered me sixty-four (!!) miniature boxes of cereal for our anniversary last week. (According to the all-knowing Google, a traditional fourteenth wedding anniversary gift would include ivory and orchids, but I’m quite content with Apple Jacks and Frosted Flakes!)

So, there is a cupboard in my kitchen. It is the cereal cupboard. It is full. I swear, I don’t have a problem! I am just prepared for a possible cereal shortage. A cereal apocalypse could be just around the corner. Are you prepared? I certainly am!

It’s not hoarding. Hoarding would mean I saved the boxes and made a special fort out of them in my spare bedroom. Hoarding would be piling the boxes haphazardly along the hallway, creating an impassable maze to the bathroom or the laundry room.  Hoarding would be not eating the cereal, but rather lining the boxes up neatly in alphabetical order, to enjoy their bright colors and feel a bit like I lived in Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment. But I do! I eat it every morning for breakfast. I eat it with a smile on my face as I sit cross-legged on my living room floor, stalking former students on Facebook and catching up on my favorite blogs. (Thank you StrongVPN!)

I’ve heard people snidely referred to as having a champagne taste on a beer budget, but I’m happily the girl with Malt-o-Meal bagged cereal taste on a Kellogg’s boxed cereal budget! So, while the rest of you are contemplating which variety of spices to add to your expensive Kobe beef burger, I will be safe in my knowledge that emerald green creates a divine contrast with the Pearly Gates.

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This is the current stash, but additions are always welcome.

Fourteen and Counting…

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While last weekend may have marked our two month anniversary in Chengdu (click here for that commemorative post), this Wednesday marks yet another anniversary- the fourteenth of our marriage. Fourteen years ago, at the tender age of nineteen, I married an older man. (Okay, he was all of twenty-one. We were babies. I admit it.)

In honor of this annual event, I received a care-package from Idaho a few weeks ago. (It was the first package to be shipped our way, so without knowing how long that process would take, said package joined the rank and file of boxes heading from the US to every corner of the world at an early date. The early bird may get the worm, but the early package gets a skip and a hop and a little squeal of joy in the mail room. It’s the trifecta of excitement!) When the box arrived two weeks before our actual anniversary, I originally planned to set it on a shelf and wait for the big day to roll around, but I quickly found an excuse to not be patient! After picking the box up from the consulate mail area, in order to get it back to my office inside the consulate, I had to open the box as a security measure. Sheryl Crow wisely informed us that the first cut is always the deepest, which holds true not only in the world of heartbreak, but also when it comes to opening presents. Once that initial slice through the packing tape created a peak into the recesses of the cardboard box, it was all over. Package open.

This year’s anniversary goody package included beef jerky for Thad (not my idea of a treat, but he was quite pleased with it), tasty Idaho Spuds for us to share (four out of four of which I ate), fabulous summer plastic plates for our house (very much appreciated, as we are still living off of the welcome kit provided by the consulate, which means we have a veritable Noah’s ark of kitchen goods-two plates, two bowls, two cups, two forks, two spoons…you get the idea) and a couple of new shirts for me (desperately needed, as the few work clothes I bought are quickly getting tiresome, evident in that when I wore the new black and green shirt to work, I had no less than three people comment on the fact that I had something different on!)

But, as super-de-dooper as all of those goodies were, it wasn’t what was in the package that was important, nor even the fact that a package came, but the sentiment behind it. The fact that my parents, each year, acknowledge the anniversaries of the wedding dates of each of their three children and their spouses shows what a high premium they place on those unions.

As of September, my parents will have been married for forty-two years, so there is no doubt they understand what it takes to make a marriage last. In their four plus decades together, they’ve both worked to put the other one through undergraduate and graduate programs, they’ve raised three kids who turned out okay if I do say so myself (!!) and they have served their community through a variety of church callings and volunteer positions.  They’ve done all of this side-by-side, as each other’s best friends.

If one went looking for a role model when it comes to marriage, the search could stop at the home I grew up in.

The fact that my parents have spent more than forty years together and are happy is a testament to the value they place on their relationship. The fact that they now recognize that same united spirit in their children’s marriages with dried and cured meat products and puffed marshmallow goo covered in a thin layer of chocolate-goodness, sprinkled with coconut flakes is just an added bonus!

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Chengdu Redo!

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We’ve reached the two month mark in Chengdu. That means we’ve got two months of hotpot and Sichuan-style dishes in our bellies, but also two months of polluted air in our lungs. On a cosmic triple-beam balance, those may come out dead even. (Really though, I can’t say I’ve seen any negative effects from the air. Some days I can see farther through the haze than others, but as far as how I feel, so far there have been no noticeable side effects. Let’s wait until winter and see if this little bird is singing a different song…)

In the last eight weeks I’ve gone from being unemployed and living in what was basically a hotel (that makes me sound much more vagrant than the reality of the situation!) to fully-employed and living in a three-bedroom, two bath 24th floor apartment with a housekeeper that comes twice a week (which makes me sound a lot more fancy-pants than the reality of the situation!)

I’ve also joined the ranks of the scooting folks in China, (click here for that story) with just one mishap of note. Last Thursday, coming home from work, I was gleefully riding along, actually contemplating what a great, problem free trip is was turning out to be, when a, let’s say “jerk” in case there are any younger readers of this blog, comes up the scooter lane going the wrong direction. Not only was he a fish swimming upstream, but he decided that he didn’t need to yield to the traffic coming in the correct direction. He threaded his scooter in the space between my fabulous fuchsia one and another woman’s less awesomely colored one, clipping mine in the process. This put me into a reverse-fishtail, making the front end of my scooter skid all over the place. To get it back under control, I put my foot out to steady the twisting, at which point I kicked the metal guard railing, smacking it with the top of my foot. My first reaction was thinking I had broken my foot, but the shooting pain soon lessened to a slight throbbing, and with both self and scooter under control (under control doesn’t count what I was murmuring under my breath the rest of the ride home) I made it over the bridge and to my apartment complex. Once in the scooter parking garage, I checked my bike for damage, and finding none, checked my foot, which was a bit swollen and had a few scratches, but was none the worse for the wear.  Just another reminder to always be aware when scooting in China!

A nice apartment furnished with an actual dishwasher and a clothes dryer, plus a bathtub and several air purifiers were not a part of my life when I was living in Gansu. Neither was a the hot-pink scooter, as volunteers, even helmeted ones, were banned from riding them.  Now, these things are just normal parts of my daily routines. I’m movin’ up in the world!

But, while being here with the State Department is definitely a different experience than being here with Peace Corps, some things never change. We’ve been doing a lot of rediscovering things/places we knew when we were in Chengdu for training with the Peace Corps.

Peter’s Tex-Mex is back on the dinner options list, where I semi-regularly enjoy a plate of macaroni and cheese. (Yes Kristen, I always say it in my head with your quirky emphasis! It will never just be regular mac and cheese again.)

We’ve hit up Sabrina’s Country Store for our extravagantly over-priced import needs, such as Cheetos and Pop-tarts and the brownies that I made for my CLO-sponsored New Spouses Welcome Coffee last week. (As I am still learning the quirks of the Chinese oven, as elucidated in “Betty Crocker, I Am Not,” the brownies did not turn out beautifully. They tasted yummy, but they could have used another two or three minutes in the oven, meaning when they came out of the pan, they were a bit on the soft side and ended up squished by the spatula. Then it didn’t help that I had to put them in a Tupperware container in the “trunk” of my scooter! Needless to say, they were tasty but definitely not pretty.)

Since we’ve been back, we’ve also re visited the pandas (click here to read about their fuzzy fabulous-ness), JinLi Street’s tourist shops, where I bought my first round of postcards to send home to family, the Wide and Narrow Alleys and a couple of “antique” markets.

It has been a clichéd blink of an eye. Maybe it is because we lived here before, or hopefully because we are just so dang adaptable, but we’ve quickly created routines and habits to help us make Chengdu home.

Two months. Eight weeks. Fifty-six days. One thousand three hundred forty-four hours. Eighty thousand six hundred forty minutes. Four million eight hundred thirty-eight thousand four hundred seconds. It may not quite be the lyrics from Rent, but it is how I currently measure the life of this woman in my season of Chengdu love.

 

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Dead Presidents Still Illude Me

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Tomorrow will be the four-week marker of my new job as CLO in Chengdu.  Today, being a State Department payday, clearly marked in red on the official work calendar taped to the dingy white wall next to my computer, was one that I have been looking forward to for quite some time. After quitting my teaching job May of 2011, I effectively took the entire next year off. (I like to consider it a dry-run at retirement. I give it an overall rating of 70/30. 70% of the time was fabulous. I read. I wrote. I traveled. 30% was frustrating. I hid from the maid. I ate too many doughnuts. I took one too many naps. Next time a shot at semi-retirement comes around, I’ll be set!) Granted, due to the timeline of teacher pay, where contracts run September to August, I got paid on the 25th of each month throughout the summer, but in essence, it has been a year since I have added anything to the Ross family coffers.  (I would like to say in that year I also didn’t deplete said coffers in any way, but between LASIK and flights to Idaho and a furiously fuchsia scooter, we all know that isn’t true!)

With this black hole of employment behind me, I have been eagerly awaiting my paycheck. (I have to admit that my excitement doesn’t quite reach the levels it did when I tore off the edges around the three-perforated sides of my first paycheck envelope, at the age of sixteen, that I got from good ol’ ShopKo, where I started working at the bargain rate of $5.25/hour.  At that point, seeing my name printed on the check was a new thrill. I quickly endorsed it and drove it over to our credit union, where I promptly deposited the parental requirement of one-half into my college savings account and signed on the dotted line for some cash from the remaining funds that would buy me wonders such as the cute new sandals I had been coveting at Payless and a Clay Walker CD to keep me company on the drive to work and back a few times a week.  These days, there is no envelope to carefully unfold and no dotted line to endorse. It will all directly in to an account on a different continent! It is definitely a bit anticlimactic.)

Enough of the walk down memory lane. It’s payday- remember?

A glimmer in my eye and my newly minted Employee Express password in hand accompanied me to my computer to this morning, where I was sure I would see the results of the last three hectic weeks.(Between taking on a new job at the height of the annual 4th of July mayhem, the sudden and unexpected loss of our GSO left me filling in a hole here and a hole there, helping out wherever I was able.)  I had already told Thad I was treating him to dinner at Pizza Hut (What?!? It is fancy in China!) as a celebration of the new source of income.

But alas, it was not to be.

Logging into the payment system revealed a sad (and poor) discovery- there will be no pay this week. Apparently, the State Department is a little slow when it comes to issuing first paychecks, taking several pay periods to get their accounts set up so that the green paper flows my way.

No pay=no Pizza Hut. (Not because Pizza Hut is out of our price range with just Thad’s income, but because I wanted it to be a special treat- *my* treat!)

But, I shall not despair.  Two weeks from now, rather than sitting at my adorable pink computer, in my newly rearranged office area, pondering the workings of the Department and wondering what that first paycheck will amount to, I will be ensconced in a booth on the second floor at the WanDa Guangchang Pizza Hut, sipping lukewarm lemon water, awaiting the arrival of my very own personal pan pizza. Maybe pepperoni? Maybe just cheese? Oh, the world will be my oyster. (I don’t believe oyster is a topping choice, but I am pretty sure there are a few other seafood options available for the native diner at a Chinese Pizza Hut.)

It will be worth the wait.

Maximum Mobility Achieved!

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Scoot- (v.)- To ride a scooter or motorized bike (colloquial)    1) Each morning, the blonde foreigner was a sight to behold as she would scoot to work on her stunningly pink scooter.

 

 

As an English teacher (once one, always one!) I always told my students that when I earned my bachelor’s degree, with it I was conferred the right to add new words to the English language, provided I could assign them a part of speech and use them correctly in a sentence. I would like to invoke this right, not in the creation of an entirely new word, but to tweak the meaning of an existing word so that there is a more succinct way to describe my daily form of transportation to and from the US Consulate in Chengdu.

I scoot to work.

That’s right. I’m mobile in Chengdu! After several shopping trips to peruse the goods available, last weekend I finally broke down and made the purchase of a new scooter.(After nearly fourteen years of marriage, Thad is well-acquainted with my need to look, look again, walk away and then look one more time before actually making a purchase of anything over about $35, so he was prepared for this multi-weekend shopping excursion. Even a trip to somewhere as seemingly ordinary as The Container Store can become an outing of epic proportions.)  With Thad’s much broader vocabulary and more deft bargaining skills, we were able to purchase a bright pink scooter (if Jem and the Holograms were a biker gang, this would be their scooter of choice) for just under $350USD. When you subtract the VAT refund we get for not having to pay local taxes on goods purchased in China, I ended up with fuchsia fabulousness on wheels for well under the three-hundred mark.

Luckily for me, a good friend was looking for a motorcycle class buddy last fall (here’s the story on that experience!) and I hopped at the chance to try something totally new, so I joined Erin in a weekend course on riding. While it isn’t necessary and my scooter tops out at about 45KPH, I have found the background to be a useful one now that I am on the wild streets of Chengdu. (Granted, I may be the only one on the streets with any formal riding background, but at least I know not to kick the dogs and to ride in full-defensive mode-always!)

I’ve now got a week under my belt as a scooter rider and I’ve learned some valuable lessons in that time. These include such tidbits of wisdom as:

*Everyone is out to maim/kill me. Whether it is a bus barreling down the side lane, a passenger exiting a taxi without looking or an overloaded bicycle in the computer district of town, no one is looking out for me other than me.  I should always be ready to make a quick swerve to avoid a possible collision with the bike stopped short in front of me, the car merging into the bike lane because it doesn’t want to wait in the traffic jam or the taxi headed to the gas station for a refill and a rest.

*Calling people names in English is a healthy outlet for scooter-rage. They may not know what I am saying, but murmuring a few choice words under my breath makes me feel a bit better about the situation. Plus,  I have found it is a good way to exercise my creativity! The more unique the epithet, the more justified I feel it is. Just today, as I headed to the consulate, a taxi came to a near complete stop in front of my lane so that he and his passenger could gawk at the white girl on the scooter. Not only did he create a bike jam of semi-epic proportions, but I had to come to a complete stop, with no way to maneuver around his vehicle. At this point, I may have grumbled something about taking a picture, as it would last longer, before blasting my little horn at him until he proceeded forward.

*When in Rome…Riding a scooter in China is a matter of joining the locals and doing as they do. This means if everyone else is crossing on a red light, it is best just to join the crowd and go with them, rather than being the lone bike in on the edge of the crosswalk.  If the other bikers are riding up the bus lane because there is an old man hawking cherries in the middle of the lane you should be in, don’t try to weave around him just to follow the “law.”  Join the bus lane and go a full 45KPH until the bike lane is available again. Local convention trumps established rules.

After a successful week of scooting to and from work for me, and a frustrating week of waiting for cabs in 90 degree weather with 80% humidity for Thad,  I am happy to announce that we are now a 2-scooter family. Thad and I went back to the scooter lane, where he had the lovely opportunity to haggle, yet again, for a bike. Granted, it only took him one trip through the shops to decide which bike he liked the best, but, hey, we can’t all be as thorough (and picky!) as I am.  His does not look like something that would fit right in on an episode of My Little Pony Meets the Care Bears, as mine does, but is rather a very manly navy blue with silver embellishments. We can now create double the ruckus as we scoot around Chengdu together, turning heads and causing a stir wherever we go.

And not to worry, a helmet has been ordered and in the mail. I would like to claim that it is a tame black or maybe even silver, but no, in keeping with the over-the-top color scheme I’ve got going, it is sparkly purple covered in pink and yellow daisies. Upon its arrival, I will officially be the most fashionable scooting laowai on First Ring Road! I figure if the locals are going to stare, I may as well give them something to see!

So, Mr. Noah Webster, please update your book of words to include “scoot,” a verb conveying the action one undertakes when riding a motorized bike. With that, it is official.

I scoot.You scoot. Thad scoots. We scoot.

 

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Go Forth and Celebrated the Fourth!

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What is a better way to celebrate the birth of a new nation than by going out in to the woods in central Idaho, freezing a wild porcupine with bright light, loading him up and hauling him back to town where he will compete in what may be the world’s only annual porcupine race? I can’t imagine there is one!

The tradition of porcupine races in Council, Idaho is decades old, and has been a part of my family’s annual celebration since I was the same height as the spiky competitors themselves. Before each contender is hauled out to the racing ground though, he is put in a cage, strapped to the back of a four-wheeler and driven through town as part of Council’s 4th of July parade. Once all have had a gander at the challengers, each animal is auctioned off, with the winning “owner” getting a cut of that day’s prize purse. Run Mr. Porcupine, run!

Of course, each year there is a jailbreak during the race, where at least one, if not many, of the pokey little guys scurries under the plastic sheeting meant to be the course perimeter. It is at this point that small children are quickly hoisted on to the backs of their fathers, mothers let out squeals of terror and the entire crowd takes off as if a grenade landed in the vicinity of their viewing area.  It just wouldn’t be a porcupine race without a few quills dangling painfully from the calf of an unprepared spectator sporting shorts rather than the necessary long-pants required of such a potentially painful event.

On top of the trek to Council to see the races, my childhood Independence Days were rounded out with evenings spent  lounging on a blanket spread across a patch of lawn in front of the College of Idaho’s library, munching on Idaho Spuds (a wonderful concoction of puffed marshmallow swathed in a thin layer of chocolate covered in coconut flakes) and where we had a perfect view of the small-town fireworks provided by the city of Caldwell.

This  year, there were no porcupine races on my agenda, no Idaho Spuds making a mess of coconut down my shirt, and no red, white and blue fireworks to commemorate the birth of a new nation.

That isn’t to say the day wasn’t celebrated though.

I attended not one, not two, but three separate 4th of July events over the course of the previous week. The US Consulate in Chengdu hosted two events- one last week in Chongqing and one this week here in the city. Both were official parties, thrown to celebrate with our host-country dignitaries and contacts. Official event really means “working event.” The evenings are definitely networking opportunities, where both the Chinese and Americans come with their stacks of name cards, making connections with new people, passing out contact information and building relationships. This is all great, expect for the fact than I neither have name cards, nor, as CLO, am I a contact that people are looking to make. What this means is that as soon as someone I was chatting with realized I had no real power/information, our conversations quickly came to a halt and they moved on to bigger fish, leaving me to swim alone like an awkward little minnow.

The third, and final, Independence Day event was the community one, planned and hosted by this brand new CLO.  As my first official party as the planner, I decided to go informal and low-key. By this point in the list of parties, people were not looking for anything too rehearsed or regimented. I heard that sidewalk chalk (or at least colored chalk) was available at the local IKEA, so I made a trip out there last week, which could be a whole blog post of its own, as I saw not only several people sleeping on the beds and one guy actually preparing a small lunch in one of the sample kitchens, but also a photo shoot in one of the living room display areas! I ordered seventeen pizzas from Mike’s and put a whole lot of soda in the fridge.  With several spouses offering to provide desserts, we were ready to enjoy an afternoon of hazy skies at the pool. (Haze is constant here. Sunshine is a rarity. Chengdu has to be a solar panel’s worst nightmare!)

The day before the party, I checked The Weather Channel’s website, just to make sure I was set for the party. When the site listed Wednesday as having 100% chance of rain, I knew a change of venue was imperative. 100% leaves no wiggle room. It will rain. It will be muddy. There will be no swimming.  I sent out a quick email moving the party indoors and made sure I had a giant roll of butcher paper to take the place of sidewalk for the kids.

After going in early to put beer and soda on ice and bedeck the reception room in glorious red, white and blue, I was set for a rainy day party. But what did I get?

Sunshine!

(Now is not the time to get me started on my feelings about weather forecasters. Yet again, I’ve been misled and mistreated by these “professionals” who peer into their crystal balls of meteorology and divine the future of local cloud cover and precipitation. I put no more faith in them than I do the woman at the county fair whose tent is bedazzled with fake gems and who will read your palm for the low, low price of just $5.)

That’s right. In a city that hasn’t seen actual rays of sun in well over two weeks, my 100% chance of rain day turned into the nicest day we’ve seen in a fortnight. The sun was out, a slightly blue sky was visible and the sidewalks were begging for amateur artwork. Needless to say, the party quickly moved outdoors where pavement was splattered with pink flowers and blue clouds and green trees and the pool was filled with everyone from toddlers to Marines.

So, my 4th of July might have been missing mid-sized spikey mammals competing to waddle across the finish line on a high school football field, but it was filled with new friends, passable pizza and most importantly, some rare buy glorious sunshine! (Rumor has it those delightful little treats known as Idaho Spuds are in a care package somewhere between Idaho and Sichuan as I type.  It’s never too late for marshmallow-y goodness.)

Barbie Attempts to Give Blood

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Blood. It is a little icky and I don’t really want to see it spurting out of an open wound, but I am also not going to faint at the sight of a cut or a needle.  Recently, the nurse at the consulate organized a blood drive and after advertising it in my Panda Post, I figured I’d better support the cause and go donate some of my own oozy, red fluid.

I had good intentions. I would like to make that very clear. Good intentions.

It started with me skittering out of a meeting and running back to my office to grab my ID, I went out to the alley where the blood bus was located. (Yes. This is legit. The donation was taking place in a bus. The bus was parked in the alley. It’s all good…) After filling in my official government form acknowledging that I do not have a communicable disease, that I have not taken aspirin in the last week, have not donated blood in the last six months and I am not currently (or within three days on either side) menstruating, I was allowed to enter the van.

Upon arrival in the van, I was taken to a table where a nurse pricked my finger and then milked blood from the tip to put on a coded chart. She determined that I had type O blood, which was actually great information to have. You see, my whole life, I had been told that I was A-positive. Then, when Thad and I  were doing our medical forms for the Foreign Service, we had to have blood tests and one came back A-positive and one came back O. Thad’s paper said he was the A-positive, but I was convinced they must have mixed them up, because I had always been told that was my blood type and he didn’t know his, so I thought it could have been a simple data-entry mistake. (Plus, as a total over-achiever when it comes to school stuff, being A-positive would have fit with my nerd-like eagerness to always have the best score.) Now I know. I’m O.

O is the universal donor though, so I was more ready than ever to hop in to that chair and do a little service for my fellow Chengdu-ers. (Chengdu-ites? Chengdu-ans? Chengdu-ren. That’s the one!)

As I was headed in, Thad was headed out with his dress-shirt sleeve rolled up, his elbow and surrounding eight inches of arm thickly swabbed in iodine and a Band-Aid covered cotton swab smack in the middle. He also had a beautifully decorated pink box with his parting gift- a ceramic bowl. I guess giving blood does pay!  As a successful donor, he wished me luck and headed up to the CLO Lounge to enjoy some cookies and juice while I got ready to make my deposit in the blood bank.

With his chair empty, I made my way to the back of the bus (just like all the cool kids!) where I handed over my paperwork, yet again, and settled in for the bloodletting.

At this point in the story, it might be good if I let you in on a rather pertinent piece of information- I’ve never given blood before! You see, when I am not excluded by travel to various countries, the nurses take one look at my arms and send me packing. I apparently have no blood veins. This has become an issue each and every time I have to have blood drawn for tests. In the past, I’ve had phlebotomists go with the insert-needle-and-poke-around method, I’ve had them fiddle with my feet in hopes of finding a good vein and most often, I’ve had them call in the head-honcho to do the poking. My veins are just not easy to access.

But, back to the blood van in the alley.

After the nurse put the tourniquet on my arm and got exactly zero veins to pop, she proceeded to add a second tourniquet and then employ the slapping-the-patient’s-arm method. After the double-tourniquet and slapping got us nowhere, she repeated the same process on my right arm. Again, no luck. At this point, another nurse, between donors, joined the fun. She decided to give it a shot and it was back to the left arm. After another left and right check with no better results, the nurses were stumped.  This entire process involved a lot, a whole lot, of arm slapping!

One of the Chinese staff members who was giving blood at the same time leaned over and asked what was going on. When I told her they couldn’t find a vein, she looked at me very seriously and said, “But your arms are so white. How can they not see them?”  Gee, thanks!

After a third round of trying and failing to find a vein, a mini-conference of the three nurses was convened. None of them wanted to be the one to tell me it wasn’t going to happen, so after watching them huddle and discuss, when one came back, I just looked at her and said, “Should I just go?” She smiled and nodded yes, sending me on my way.

Blood donation failure.

The thing is, after talking to Thad, I think I am okay with the way it worked out. Apparently, the needles being used to draw blood could have doubled as irrigation siphons in an emergency.

Blood donation wasn’t a total loss though. I may not have contributed to my local community and I definitely didn’t come home with a flowered ceramic bowl, but I did walk away humming my favorite Aqua tune. You see, as I waited for the first finger-pricking to determine my blood type, the nurses’ assistants called me over to tell me they thought I looked like Barbie! Blonde hair and blue eyes go a long ways in western China.  Barbie may be living a life in plastic, but she is fantastic!

Come on Barbie, let’s go party!

Massaged by a Steamroller

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This weekend marks our one-month-in-Chengdu anniversary.  What better way to celebrate it than with a three-day weekend! It just happens to be Dragon Boat Festival here in China, which means Friday, Saturday and Sunday have been ours to do what we please. Since Thad is the duty-officer for the consular section this week (which also means I get to call him “Doodie!” for a few more days) we were not able to go out of town for the long weekend, but instead enjoyed some rather warm and humid days here in the ‘Du.

After a rather crazy first week on the job, where I am quickly learning not only my role within the consulate, but also a lot about State Department culture, we decided that a massage might be a fabulous way to kick off the weekend. Now, as we’ve traveled around Southeast Asia over the years, Thad has often taken advantage of the inexpensive massage options available, but until this weekend, I bowed out of each offering. It all just seems too awkward and uncomfortable to me. But, with a new city and a new job, why not add a new experience to the trifecta of newness? So, along with friends here in the city, we scheduled a two-hour foot-massage, which is really a full-body massage with a rather extensive foot bath included.

I was leery going in to this massage. I didn’t really know what to expect, nor was I overly comfortable with the idea, but I tried to go with an open mind. Granted, there were a few misgivings when we were brought these cotton pajama-like outfits to wear. They were hideous, but oh-so-comfortable! My brain couldn’t decide whether to rebel at the ugliness (and slight cult-like nature of the four of us in matching PJs) or to find a way to shove them in my purse to take home to enjoy on a nightly basis.  In the end, I donned my prescribed outfit, enjoyed it while I could, and then left it folded neatly on the end of the bed upon leaving. As comfortable as it was, I just don’t think I could manage to wear it outside the realm of the massage parlor. Sometimes appearance trumps coziness, no matter how glorious the coziness is.

I must admit, during the massage, I was pretty okay. The foot massage was great- I’d go for that anytime. The shoulder/neck kneading that occurred while my feet were marinating in what I can only assume was tea prepared on the surface of the sun was a different matter. Let’s just say that deep-tissue doesn’t begin to describe the depth of this massage. While it was slightly painful at the time, I stuck it out, as Thad told me that while it might be a bit uncomfortable at the time, the next morning I would feel fabulous. (Apparently fabulous means “crushed by a steamroller, but more on that later…)

All was going fine, by feet were fully boiled and scrubbed, when it all took a turn towards ridiculousness. Now, throughout the foot massage, I didn’t utter a single giggle. My feet tend toward the ticklish side, but I was able to endure the various implements which must have been purposely designed to make the foreigner titter. My maturity and togetherness quickly came apart though when after a decent back massage moved south and became a butt massage. Luckily, I had been forewarned of this part of the routine, so I wasn’t shocked by the occurrence, but I was forced to bury my head in the pillow as I stifled a laugh as my rear-end received a short, but strange massage. Thank goodness this was towards the end of the evening, otherwise I may not have been able to keep my composure until the masseuses left the room.

After paying what amounted to about $20 for a two-hour working over, we headed home. I mentioned to Thad that my dude was really into the neck and shoulder part of the process and that I felt a little sore. He told me to stop being a baby, which I assumed I probably was being, as this was my first ever massage.  That assumption only lasted until morning, when I tried to roll out of bed and became paralyzed by muscled that not only did I not know I have, but ones that I would rather not ever know I had! My upper back/shoulders/neck hurt so much that I had to do the old-man stumble in to the bathroom to check in the mirror to make sure I wasn’t sporting a full-body bruise! While my skin was as pasty-white as ever, it felt like it should be the raging purple and black of a blossoming bruise.

Needless to say, I spent a good deal of my Dragon Boat Saturday laying on the couch, moaning about how maybe a “foot massage” was not the best way to start the long weekend!

With my initial massage experience officially in the books, I am sure I will be making a few more visits to the parlor, as it is a favorite amongst people at the consulate and organizing a gathering or two there all directly under my job description. Next time though, I’ll be prepared. There will be no silent acceptance of the way-too-deep tissue massage! Call it being a baby, but that just hurt!

Goodbye Bonbons, Hello PB&J

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After a year of self-imposed temporary retirement, my days of lounging on the couch and eating Bonbons are coming to an end.  (Okay, there were no Bonbons consumed over the course of the last twelve months, but there was a lot of reading, writing and random wandering in the DC metro area, as well as a few less thrilling days filled with boredom and doubt. Luckily, the down days were few and more nostalgic than depressing.) Soon, as in Monday, it is time for me to rejoin the full-time workforce that powers our great nation. Granted, I am joining that forty-hour-a-week club on a different continent, but it is in the service of the Homeland, so I can soon commiserate with everyone else looking forward to weekend each Monday morning.

While my re-entry isn’t into the world of education (a topic about which I am having very mixed emotions), it is in a capacity that will allow me to be deeply involved in our new community and hopefully create some of the same connections with people that I was able to do teaching. I will be the CLO (community liaison officer) for the Chengdu Consulate. This means that I will work to help officers and families make the transition to their new home, work to create a great morale at the post, provide information about schools in the area, as well as event planning and (heaven forbid it is needed) crisis management on behalf of the families.

My brain (and notebook) have been in overdrive the last few weeks as I have been trying to glean as much information as possible from the outgoing CLO. She is a treasure-trove of knowledge about everything in this city. She can point an officer or family member in the right direction for anything from simple tailoring needs to wherein town to go to get an entire costume created. She can tell someone where to go to get a picture framed and then turn around and office advice to someone else on the best place to find a turkey for a special dinner. The woman is a walking Rolodex for Chengdu! Needless to say, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of having to create all of those connections myself, but luckily she has been kind enough to introduce me to many of her contacts and to take me on a variety of field trips to various sections of town.  She is leaving behind some rather large shoes to fill, but with my predilection for footwear, I am hoping I’ve got something in the closet that will sparkle and shine!

Monday morning, the year-long vacation comes screeching to halt. It might be a little painful when Thad’s alarm goes off and I actually have to roll out of bed, rather than give him a slight nudge to get him moving and then sprawl diagonally across the vastness of an entire bed to myself. And, in a few weeks I may be seeing the grass as greener on the unemployed side of the fence, but for now, I am excited to rejoin the workforce, to pack my peanut butter sandwich each morning and to actually contribute a few dead presidents to our bank account each month.

What exactly have I done with my year off? I have been…

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