Hooray for March 1^st!

February has never been my favorite month; whether as a student, a teacher or living in China, I’ve always been grateful it falls in the “knuckle valley” when I count out “January, February, March” to see how many days April has.

When I was in school, 3^rd quarter was always the biggest struggle and the report card that I dreaded bringing home. Take middle school for example.  First quarter is the start to a new school year. I would show up bright and eager, with a new school bag (not the Esprit bag that I dreamed of, but a ShopKo navy blue duffle that squeaked constantly as I met up with my best friend, Lesley and walked from Jefferson Junior High were my dad worked to Wilson Middle School where we were 7^th graders, navigating the perils of first boyfriends-Isaac asked me out with a roll of Smarties folded up in the requisite “yes, no, maybe” note. I stealthily crunched through the candy gift in math class before marking “yes” and sending it back through my friend, through his friend to him-, multiple class periods and the necessary Tetris of sharing a locker, and the devastation of a girl in the locker room telling me my mascara -first tube ever!- made me look like a raccoon. Oh the drama.) and ready to tackle all the projects and tests thrown my way.  Second quarter is all about the holidays- Thanksgiving and Christmas doing a great job to break up the weeks of world history and study of photosynthesis, and of course fourth quarter was all about the end of the year and summer the approaching summer break.  But that dreaded third quarter. Ugh. The festivities are behind us (although I survive January with a mid-month birthday) and spring break is eons away. 7^th grade- that was the year that during the third quarter midterms, I brought home a report card with a B- in science and a C is math. (Look, I was never destined for the STEM world.) This did not go over well at home. Needless to say, I was grounded until the end of the quarter, having to do math homework each night, even if there wasn’t assigned pages to do. (That’s the downfall to having a father who taught high school math for many years. No homework? No problem! He would take my book, look at the chapter we were working on and make a page of problems for me to solve.) February, you were no good to me as a middle schooler.

Jump ahead a decade to when I was on the other side of the desk. February was no better standing with my back to the white board rather than facing it. It is hard to motivate 8^th graders to begin with, but add in days stuck inside because the temperature is in the single digits, the trepidation of the upcoming statewide exams and the endless weeks of sameness and it is long for everyone.

One might think that life abroad is always an adventure, and much of the time there are hilarious stories to be told, but day-to-day is actually not that different from life in the States. I get up, go to work Monday through Friday (and sometime Saturday), come home after work, make dinner, stream some Netflix if my internet is fast enough and then read and go to bed.  Chengdu life just plods along in February. The skies are constantly gray, pollution hits its highest levels of the year and we go weeks without the sun making an appearance. It is a long month.

But, it is all behind us now! March has arrived (not so much like a growling lion as a hulking gray elephant) and I’m ready to get back to real life. Back to going out with friends after work, back to the gym in my free time and back to wanting to participate in the world outside the walls of my apartment. Even without sunshine yet, I just feel lighter and happier, knowing that the eternal weeks of February are gone for another year. (Maybe next year it won’t even feel like February since Kuala Lumpur is a humid 90 degrees most of the month.)

Beware, the Ides is only a fortnight away, but I’ll take my chances with traitorous best friends rather than suffer through another miserable day of February.

I got up this morning with high hopes. (I may not have been bright-eyed and bushy tailed, but wrapped in a fluffy pink robe and shuffling through to the kitchen to get Cheerios still counts as being “up,” even if not fully functional.) Why high hopes on this random day in February? Because I could see across the river, and seeing across the river means that the air pollution is down, which means, hope against all hope, we might see a ray or two of sunshine at some point today.

It may sound a bit ridiculous to be cheered by the sight of a river that is less than 100 yards from my apartment, but we’ve been weeks with a steady haze in Chengdu. For those of you who follow air quality indexes (two years ago I would have asked who in their right mind does that, but after a couple of years working for the State Department as a community liaison office coordinator, I am more well-versed in the science of air junk than I ever imagined I would be), we’ve been running a steady 160-180 for a couple of weeks now. With a bit of overnight rain though, we broke through that depressing gray miasma and when I checked the monitor first thing this morning, we were at an AQI of 80. I can’t remember the last time we were in double digits. This is exciting news in Chengdu-the soup has parted!

Having lived most of my life in Idaho, I’m used to cold winters, but for the most part they were sunny winters. Yes, the Treasure Valley has its annual inversion and I know it is no fun at all for that week or two in January when Bogus Basin is invisible, but Boise at its worst is Chengdu at its best.  So, yes, I can do cold winters (I don’t like them and prefer to avoid them, which is why Malaysia is going to be fantastic for the next two winters), but they are survivable as long as that brilliant orb in the sky makes a daily appearance.

Every summer, I convince myself that Chengdu winters aren’t really that bad, while at the same time counseling all of the new officers that they should really plan a vacation to Thailand or Indonesia during January or February. Nothing heads of a bout of seasonal-affective disorder like a few days in Bangkok or Bali. Heeding my own advice would have been a good thing this year. (We did go to Hawaii in January, but I definitely could have used a February-Phuket boost as well.)

It really is that bad.

Luckily, Pope Gregory had the wonderful foresight to make February the shortest month of the year, shortening the amount of time I grumble about winter weather. (Like it or not, when March rolls around, I consider it spring. In my mind, the air is going to get magically better, I’ll be able to put my winter coat away for the last time and say goodbye to my tights for a few years.)

In elementary school, we learned that March “comes in like a lion and out like a lamb,” which I am totally fine with. A lion’s head is surrounded by a giant orange and yellow sphere, which is exactly what I am looking for! (Apparently, I need Thad’s post-Malaysia posting to be in Africa, as my lion-anatomy is heavily reliant on cartoons.)

Elusive Mr. Sunshine has yet to make an appearance yet today, but it is still early. I will keep my fingers and toes crossed that some much needed vitamin D breaks through the smog soon. As for now though, I will content myself with the clear(er) view of the building across the alley and knowing that my lungs will get a bit of respite when I head out to get noodles for  lunch this afternoon.

(I must admit to a bit of growing trepidation though, as I just checked the AQI and rather than holding steady in the 80s and I had hoped, we are climbing back up, having passed the triple-digit mark and now sitting at 112. Nevertheless, I’ll keep all ten toes and all ten fingers crossed. Sunshine might still happen.)

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Here’s the blog I entered in the ExpatsBlog.com contest. I ended up getting 2nd out of 8 entries in the China catergory, with 39 comments. It wasn’t the showing I was hoping for, but it was still fun to write for a wider audience. I hope to find some similar writing opportunities in the future.

Thank you to everyone who commented!

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Chengdu comes in at #39 on a list of the world’s largest cities, with nearly 8 million residents calling this landlocked city home.  8 million people means it is a metropolis, but if it were interviewing for a job and asked to name three adjectives describing itself, cosmopolitan would definitely not be in the list. Big?  Yes. Up and coming? Definitely.  On par with the great cities of the world like New York, Paris and London? Not quite yet. But, that lack of refinement is exactly what I love about this city. Beijing and Shanghai are great, but they’ve lost a lot of their quirks, their uniqueness and their spirit. Having over a thousand miles between here and the bustling life of the capital has allowed Chengdu to remain its own city, fostering a distinctly Sichuan character- loud and brash, but still laid back and relaxed.
Filled with the ruins of ancient civilizations, as a gateway to Tibet and where you can find anything and everything emblazoned with a panda decal, Chengdu is a fantastic city for ex-pats to call home. We’ve got spicy food that will put even the hardiest taste buds to the test and tea houses dot the city like freckles on a ginger. But, it’s not all fun and games! Western China has its own set of rules when it comes to daily life; pitfalls lurk around every corner and on every sidewalk. To be a successful ex-pat in Chengdu, there are a few “dangers” you must be mindful of on a regular basis.

Since the Chinese (especially western China-dwelling) tend to be rather superstitious, here are a lucky eight “Chengdu dangers,” in no particular order:

1) Electric scooters.  Silent as that holy night in late December, they’ll sneak up on the unsuspecting foreigner, whipping by mere centimeters from pedestrians. Heaven forbid you are walking with a friend, gesticulating even semi-wildly as you recount your day at the panda reserve, for your elbow is likely to be clipped by a passing, eerily silent scooter.  Don’t think that you’re safe just because you are walking on the sidewalk, which one would think would be designated for foot traffic. Road, bus lane, sidewalk- they’re all home to the free-range scooters in town.

2) Grandmas on the subway. Who’s the most aggressive public transportation rider in Chengdu? There’s no question it is the little old woman who stands about five feet tall and is willing to push her way through any crowd to be the first on (or off) the bus/subway/train/plane. Her slight stature gives her a lower center of gravity, somehow allowing her to push burly foreign men out of the way, her elbows precisely placed in the kidneys of anyone blocking her passage.

3) Death-che. (Also called “san lun che” or three-wheeled car.) For those who have traveled in Southeast Asia, these are essentially the Chinese version of the tuk-tuk. In Chengdu, these little rolling tin cans are restricted to certain areas of town, and yet, I see them everywhere. The drivers can smell desperation from blocks away; when you are getting passed up by cab after cab on a Friday night, they’ll slowly sidle up next to you, ask where you are going, give you a ridiculously high rate (that they’ll bargain no more than about five kuai on) and then wait for you to give in to the temptation of a ride, even a potentially hazardous one.

4) Brick bombs. It rains in Chengdu. Not all year long, but we have very definite rainy periods where we get enough precipitation to flood the streets and make the river overflow its banks. But, it isn’t the rain that is the hazard. It is the sidewalks after the rain. You see, many sidewalks in Chengdu are made of these square bricks that are set on top of whatever ground was there originally, but they are not well-cemented down. This means after a few rains, they come lose and are wobbly, leaving space between the brick and the ground for small puddles to collect. Then, as you are innocently walking to work in your adorable new gunmetal gray tights, you step on one of these unattached bricks, squirting the muddy water up the back of your legs, forcing you to utter a string of not very nice words and essentially ruining your cute tights. Total brick bomb.

5) Parasols. Yes, fancy umbrellas- watch out for them! The problem isn’t so much the devices themselves, although their ubiquitous nature is a bit overwhelming. They come out when it rains; they come out when it’s sunny. But, the real issue lies in the height difference between the average Chinese woman and me. I’m 5’10”, which puts my eyeballs directly in the line-of-poking for those sharp metal ends that come off of each section of the umbrella. (Google tells me these are called “end cleats.” I think “ocular gougers” would be a more apt moniker.)  While sunglasses are rarely needed in Chengdu due to the constant overcast nature of the city, I’ve become a continuous wearer, as more than once they’ve saved my eyes for near-blinding.

6) Chinese New Year’s fireworks. Fireworks are fabulous and no one does them better than the Chinese. The problem is, Chengdu does them for a month! They start early and run late. Chengdu is always up for a celebration, so the New Year provides the perfect opportunity to show off all manner of explosions. In the month leading up to Spring Festival, little orange tents pop up on every other corner, all around town. Just a step inside the tent reveals the hazards of this time of year. With little or no regulation (at least enforced regulations), you can buy fireworks of all sizes off the street. Explosive devices that would be left to city fire departments to ignite are sold to teenagers, making the days leading up to the festival a cacophony of pops, booms and bangs! I’ve always contended that if a country wanted to invade China, the night of New Year’s Eve would be the time to do it. With so many mortars and shells exploding throughout the city, there would be no way to differential friendly and enemy fire.

7) Paparazzi.  Flash! Snap! Click! The camera shutters are snapping left and right. Okay, so it may not be as intense as Kanye West’s front yard, but being a tall, blonde foreigner in Chengdu definitely attracts some attention. Again, while Chengdu is a large city, it is still relatively undiscovered in terms of ex-pats living here, so a trip anywhere other than the panda base (where the foreigner tourists congregate, en mass) elicits a rather constant stream of less-than-stealthy photography. Whether it is in the supermarket as I buy meat or People’s Park where I just want to enjoy a few brief hours of sunshine, a trip out of my apartment means I need to be camera-ready. Some people will quietly take a cell phone picture, while others will be quite unabashed in their photographical documentation of my existence. I’ve had large lens cameras shoved in my face, been a part of group photos with my new Chinese “friends,” and even posed with women sporting dynasty-era costumes (I was in red-dirt covered jeans after hiking down a mountain. It was awesomely incongruous).

8) Loogies.  It’s disgusting. I know. I almost didn’t add them to my list because it is so icky, but I’d be remiss in my cautionary duties if I didn’t include it, because even though it is yucky, the real danger is in the viscosity. Loogies are literally as slick as snot! Since they are everywhere (on the sidewalk, the floor of the subway train, the aisle of the supermarket, etc.), it is best to be aware and ready to right yourself (and hold down your lunch) when you feel the inevitable slip of your foot in that tiny, gooey pile of phlegm.   (I feel queasy just typing this one!)

So, Chengdu- even with the potentially eye-socket piercing rain gear and silent but deadly scooters- it’s a fabulous city. It’s filled with ancient temples and modern architecture, all sprinkled with more than a little panda.

Come. Live. Enjoy.