Tag Archives: ex-pat

The Hunt is On…For Patio Furniture

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I’m a sucker for a patio. (That sentence initially used “deck” in place of “patio,” but I was worried a quick skim could lead the reader to a very wrong conclusion, so thought a less potentially awkward synonym would be a more appropriate introduction, although I did used to preach “hooking your reader” to my 8th graders when we wrote essays. “I’m a sucker for a deck,” read quickly and slightly incorrectly would definitely qualify as a hook!)  If we are planning dinner out in the summertime and I’m asked for my restaurant input, my only requirement is a deck. I could really care less what type of restaurant, as I’ll just be ordering the chicken strips anyway, but if it has a nice, sunny, outdoor area, I’m in! Overall, there are few little pleasures in life I enjoy more than  sitting outside on a warm summer evening with something to drink and a book.

Much to Thad’s chagrin, about two months ago (basically the week we got back from the States), I decided I needed patio furniture for our balcony. We’ve got this great little area that looks out over the river and on the rare sunny days, gets a good dose of sunshine. Since we live on the 24th floor of our building, we are high enough to get a great view of the city and away from the crowds that gather on the streets. (Although, there is something to be said for Chinese streets at night in the summer. The people here are much more communal than in the US. Evenings see small plazas filled with older ladies doing the Chinese version of Zumba, kids taking roller skating lessons and grandpas hauling babies around on their backs. The entire community goes out each evening, after dinner, for a few hours of fresh air and visiting.)

I thought I had two deck chairs coming with our HHE, but, along with a few other items I would have sworn were packed to come to China, they did not arrive. That meant furniture shopping in Chengdu, which may or may not sound like a great way to spend multiple weekends if you are Thad. We made an initial outing to IKEA, only to find that January might be a bit early for outdoor furniture shopping. But, all was not lost. Any trip to IKEA is entertainment, in and of itself. We got to witness the usual array of photo shoots going on throughout the various display areas, were a little annoyed at the fact that we couldn’t actually try out any of the chairs that were available, as they all had people lounging in them (not testing/buying, just hanging out) and purchased some meatballs for dinner. (Horse meat or no, they make a great addition to spaghetti or mashed potatoes!)

With no luck at IKEA, my next stop was B&Q. (For those of you unfamiliar, B&Q is a European Home Depot-type store. I was initiated into the world of B&Q a few weeks ago when I went there with one of our locally employed staff members to look at tile. At the consulate, we are in the middle of creating a lactation room for our new mothers and since we have limited space, we are going to turn a storage area into a really nice, private space for these women. The young man who accompanied me to the store asked me why exactly we were looking at tile, to which I replied it was for a lactation room, secretly praying to myself that we would end the conversation there. But no. He then asked, “But why?” I went on to explain that we’ve got several expectant moms in the community and they will need a place to get away at times during the day. “But why?” Our conversation then moved towards the idea that many American women come back to work just a few weeks or months after giving birth, but prefer to have their babies drinking real milk, rather than formula. “But why a room?” So, I rather awkwardly got to explain that the women needed a private space to pump. As the word “pump” came out of my mouth, I went back to my silent prayers, hoping I would not have to explain that process to this poor man. But, somehow, my lack of churchgoing prayers were answered because at this point, he looked at me and said, “I think you can do this. Is it okay if I go outside and smoke? Text me when you are ready.” NO PROBLEM! )

So, B&Q. While tile searching, I noticed they had a small outdoor area, but didn’t have time to check it out. When weekend rolled around again, Thad was lucky enough to get to go with me to see what they had for our balcony. Upon initial inspection, they seemed to have a good selection of chairs, and surprisingly, there were no locals lounging in them, just for the heck of it. After sitting in all of the different options, I narrowed it down to the chair/table set I wanted, so Thad called over the closest employee to ask him to get us two chairs and one table. He gave us a slightly odd look and said everything they had was on the floor. That means, they had exactly ONE of every chair. I’m not looking for anything fancy, but I would like the two chairs to at least match! After several minutes of discussion, I am still unsure if the furniture on the floor is the leftover stock from last year and they are waiting on this season’s to arrive or it they just have a super limited supply. Either way, I’d like two matching chairs, so back home we headed.

Frustrated with the local options, I opted to check out Amazon.com and see if they could help me out. (I’ve decided diplomatic families ought to get a discount at Amazon, considering how much we all buy there on a very regular basis. Each Tuesday and Friday when I visit the mailroom at the consulate, there is always a stack of Amazon boxes, easily identified by the orange swoopy arrow along the edge of each package. There is serious kuai spent there each week!) I found several possible options (although at prices higher than I would have liked, but I was annoyed and ready to have my chairs), but after adding them to my cart, before hitting the “purchase” button, I decided to quickly review the shipping limitation of our pouch mail system. Sure enough, the chairs, even un-assembled, would be too big to ship. Mail order options were out.

Now that a month had passed, I thought maybe it was time to give IKEA another try. Since a good friend was headed to that side of town with his car on Friday night and knew I was currently a bit obsessed with patio furniture, he invited us along. I jumped at the chance to go shopping again, with the bonus of having an easy way to get my possible purchases home. On a Friday night, there were fewer photo shoots happening (although not none), and only a couple of families taking up space in the chair section, so we were able to actually sit in the various available option. After moving from chair to chair, picturing myself on the balcony with drink in hand, I settled on high backed wood and mesh chairs, accompanied by a latticework table. Perfect!

The calendar page has been changed to March and my chairs/table are sitting on the balcony, just waiting for the perfect outdoor afternoon to arrive. Spring, I’m ready for you! Come early, stay late! I’m looking forward to a lingering spring season of occasional sunshine but consistent warmth. Ready, set, GO!

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R & R and a Few More R’s

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R & R.

Rest and relaxation. (It serves as a much-appreciated break from work and the daily stresses of living abroad.)

Recovery and rejuvenation. (It serves as a much-needed break for our lungs. For a few weeks while we were in Idaho, I didn’t taste the air once!)

Running errands and retail therapy. (I definitely did my share of shopping while I was home. Neon colored running shoes, a brightly colored purse, a rainbow of tops and a raspberry-colored skirt all squished in to my suitcase next to the new tri-barrel curling iron and hot curlers, to make the trip back to the Middle Kingdom.)

But, getting home from being Stateside for a few weeks requires a bit of readjustment.

Of course, there is the unavoidable jet lag. Our original journey was to be twenty-eight hours from wheels-up in Boise to touch-down in Chengdu. After a problem with the plane at LAX and a transfer to a different aircraft, we left Los Angeles over two hours late, which caused a chain of events that pushed our twenty-eight hour trip to closer to thirty-three hours. Wheels finally met tarmac in Chengdu at 2:30AM, meaning we finally fell into bed at 3:30. The good thing about that terrible arrival time was that for the first night, there was no need to fight the sleep. We dropped our suitcases at the door and were asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows. Too few hours later, my eyes popped open and I was wide-awake. Granted, 8AM is a normal time to roll out of bed on a weekend, but not when it was pushing 4AM before sleep and I were reunited.

I had great plans to battle the tiredness, trying to avoid the lingering effects of cross-hemisphere travel. Needless to say, by noon, I had given up all attempts at starting my week off on a normal schedule. I considered putting more effort into the fight, but then decided one of the great thing about being a grown-up (other than getting to eat frosting straight from the tub without getting in trouble) is I make my own bedtime. If that means the blackout curtains get drawn at noon for a four hour nap, then so be it. A comatose nap I will take! Throughout the rest of that week, I slowly pushed bedtime (and as a consequence, waking time) back later and later. A week of Chengdu under my belt and I was back to a normal sleep pattern!

It wasn’t the jet lag that was the biggest adjustment coming back though. That one is expected. It was the milk. Yes, you read that right- the milk.

While I was home, I enjoyed a lovely bowl of Marshmallow Ladies each morning. (These are the generic Lucky Charms, officially branded as Marshmallow Maties, but my four-year old niece is convinced they are Ladies, so that is what we go with.) Each morning, after filling my bowl with cereal, I turned to the fridge which always housed several gallons of fresh, 1% milk. This was milk that required refrigeration. This was milk that went bad if left on the cupboard for months (or days, or hours.) This was milk that was a perfect companion to freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.

This was not China-milk.

Over our first eight months in Chengdu, I had gotten used to the taste of boxed-milk. I have a case of it delivered to my house occasionally, which sits on my cupboard. I transfer small boxes of milk to my fridge as needed. This milk is sufficient for topping a bowl of cereal, especially if I drain the excess off the side of the spoon using the edge of the bowl as a guide.  It is not a respectable substitute to accompany freshly baked brownies. Needless to say, my taste buds had quickly reverted to their love of American milk upon arrival in the US and the conversion back to boxed milk has been a little rough.

Now, with my sleep schedule back to normal (normal is relative, as I am usually curled up in bed under a pile of blankets by 9PM, giving me a good hour or two of reading time before it’s lamps-out time)  and my taste buds realigning to the flavor of never-go-bad milk, I’ve hit the ground running on a variety of projects at work.

Settling in may be done, but it isn’t slated to be long-lasting. The suitcases may be recently stowed in the closet, but they won’t be collecting much more than a light coating of dust. In just two weeks, Thad and I are flying to the Maldives for some highly-anticipated sunshine and blue skies. I’m already planning THAT readjustment period to include soothing a sunburn and cleaning sand from the nooks and crannies of our baggage.  And if that’s “readjustment,” I’ll adjust, readjust and then adjust again!

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A No Questions Asked Turtle Transfer

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There’s an old saying about loving something and setting it free.  And while the sentiment has a lovely ring to it as it is plastered across the internet by lovelorn teenagers as a romantically font-ed tagline on heavily unfocused photographs of sunsets and seasides, I won’t get into the ethical dilemmas surrounding the possibility of setting free your captive-bred hamster into the wild because you love it, even though the closest thing he has known to freedom is rolling down the hallway in his clear plastic ball of fun, and the occasional crazy adventure as that ball cascades down the single step in to your 70’s style sunken living room. For some fuzzy little rodents, freedom may really be a quickly executed death sentence because the pine tree outside your house is home to a giant owl (possibly named Clyde) and the fields are full of coyotes and foxes, just looking for a nugget sized snack.

But I digress.

I have a new saying I would like to flood the internet with: If you have a slight fondness for something, but someone else has a true adoration for it, you should hand it over. No questions asked.

I have (okay, had, but we’ll get to that part of the tale soon enough) two turtles- Gong Bao and Ji Ding. (Their names together, literally mean “palace style chicken cutlets,” but are more commonly known in the US as kung pao chicken.) Last summer, as Thad and I wandered People’s Park on a humid Sunday afternoon, I couldn’t help but rescue these two little creatures which were being sold in tiny plastic bottles. (Click here for the full account of that Tilt O’Whirl and turtle filled day.) With my new family-recruits in-hand, we rushed home to get them out of their death-cages and into a big tub with water and a brick for sunning themselves.

Over the course of the last five months, Gong Bao and Ji Ding have lived in their tub, either on the living room floor, where if there is sunshine to be had, they will be the first recipients, or in the bathroom under the heat lamps that serve as a substitute sun. I feed them regularly, change their water a couple of times a week and occasionally giggle at they create turtle stacks. But really, that is the extent of our relationship. They are cute, but not cuddly. An undying bond has not been forged. I can only tell them apart because Gong Bao has a slightly darker colored shell and tends to be a bit less skitterish when someone comes in to share their bathroom space. (I don’t think Thad ever could tell them apart. Hopefully we never have twins.) They were slightly amusing, but that was the extent of my connection to them.

With our R&R tickets bought and travel plans completed, we needed someone to turtle-sit while we were out of town, enjoying the single-digit temperatures of Idaho for three weeks. Thad has a colleague in the consular section, one of the local staff, who used to have a tiny turtle, but it passed away this fall. She was devastated by the turtle’s untimely demise and they had talked about their mutual turtle-tending. If she were willing, we knew she would be the perfect sitter for our tiny reptilian friends. (Her devotion to her own turtle was so whole-hearted that she had her mom knit it a blanket and she took it on turtle-play dates with a neighbors turtles.)

When Thad approached her about watching the turtles for a couple of weeks, she was thrilled! She thanked him profusely for trusting her with them and told him on multiple occasions how excited she was to have them in her house while we were out of the country.

So, with that, the turtle transfer was made.

Fast forward three weeks.

We got back from R&R (had a great time at home but painful trips in both directions!) and were back at work. In the afternoon of that first day back, Thad and I got an email from our turtle-sitter that included the following pictures as attachments.

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She clearly cares about these turtles much more than I do. Yes, I like them. Like. To be honest, full days would go by that I wouldn’t even look at the undersized creatures. But obviously, this was not the case with their sitter. Not only did she say that she talked to them for two hours every evening, but she allowed them one hour of TV-time and they had an assigned bedtime. I’m not that strict when I babysit my nieces and nephews, let alone with the cold-blooded residents of my house!

After a short meeting in my office, Thad and I quickly came to the conclusion that the turtles should stay at their new home, if she would have them. There was no way we could, in good conscience, not allow her to have the little guys.  I have a slight fondness for them, but she loved them! When Thad asked her if she would like to keep the turtles, she got teary-eyed and thanked him over and over.

This all happened on Tuesday. On Friday afternoon, Thad got an instant message from this colleague telling him that she bought him a cake as a thank-you for the turtles. He, of course, told him that a cake wasn’t necessary and that we are happy for her to have them, but she insisted we take it home. In true Chinese cake fashion, it was light sponge cake covered in a super thick layer of fluffy frosting, topped in fruit. Always topped in fruit.

So, I send a plea out to all angst-ridden teenagers with basic Photoshop skills and access to whimsical pictures and fonts. Make this your newest post on Facebook, Pintrest, Tumblr, Twitter and Reddit:

If you have a slight fondness for something, but someone else has a true adoration for it, you should hand it over. No questions asked.

I did. It earned me a cake.

 

 

Forty-Nine Shades of Gray (and Two Green Turtles)

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It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s…a clear Chengdu sky?

If I can see the birds, and especially the planes, something is just not right in the capital of Sichuan. Most days consist of a gray-tinged sky, where a bit of sunlight pokes through, though never enough to make those ethereal shafts of light that make one think the Heavens are spotlighting their favorite terra-firma creations. It just doesn’t happen here.

So, when I woke up Sunday morning I thought I must still be dreaming. I usually don’t bother to pull the heavy curtains on our floor-to-ceiling bedroom windows since the sunrise isn’t a painful shock each morning, as the sky just takes on a lighter shade of gray as morning progresses. (It isn’t on my “too-read” list, as I really have no interest, but now I am starting to wonder if the chart-topping Fifty Shades of Gray isn’t written about Chengdu. It would be the perfect name for a novel set in our lovely, if rather polluted, city. After Sunday though, I’d have to re-title it Forty-Nine Shades of Gray.)

As I rolled out of bed (in a truly graceful manner, my normal morning bed-dismount usually entails a barrel roll and a bit of grumbling) I realized that I could see the sun- the actual yellow glowing globe in the sky. It wasn’t just a haze covered, distant light, but a heat-emitting, bright and soul-warming sun. This unprecedented event called for a change to my normal weekend morning routine. Rather than sitting on my living room floor, at the coffee table, with an ever-coveted bowl of cereal covered in no more than a necessary amount of shelf milk and the world at my fingertips via WordPress and Facebook, I left the laptop closed and pulled a chair on to the balcony. (I’d love to say my porch chairs were out there, to sit in on a regular basis, but after fifteen weeks at post, we have yet to receive our HHE, which is State Department-ese for “all our junk.” I’ve been told this shipment is somewhere between Shanghai and Chengdu, but that is a heck of a lot of potential area in which the crates may be on the move. Maybe next week?)

Not wanting to let such an unprecedented day go to waste, Thad and I decided to visit the People’s Park in town. Most Chinese towns of a decent size have a People’s Park, and parks here have a whole different flavor than in the US. Chinese parks are not giant expanses of soft grass where college kids meet to play Frisbee golf on the weekends or soon-to-be-married couples go to get engagement pictures taken or where young families spend an inexpensive afternoon with a cooler filled with sandwiches and soda and where their kids learn the finer points of mid-air swing dismounts. Rather, Chinese parks are places to stroll on paths, rest and drink tea at the ubiquitous tea houses, munch on snacks peddled by vendors and take kids for a spin or two on carnival rides.

It may not have been the Katherine Albertson Park in Boise or Caldwell Memorial Park, but Chengdu’s People’s Park made for an entertaining afternoon adventure.

We started by wandering around the man-made lake that is the center of the public space. There were both rowboats and motorized boats available for rent (Why would one choose to row?), but Thad gently steered us away from those lines. (I actually went and looked at prices and eyed the not-so-long lines, which I know he was aware of, and yet there was no question about cost or wait time. It was as if he didn’t care because there was no way he was getting in a boat, even if it were free and immediate. Maybe next time…)

While the main part of the park was pretty packed with people also enjoying the clear skies and break from the heat of summer, there were several off-shoot areas that were less crowded. One was filled with orchid plants (not in bloom, but still a relaxing area) and another had large terrarium-type pots.

These areas were nice to walk through and a good break from the crowds of the city, but the real fun started when I spotted a sign that said “Children’s Paradise.”  Who could pass up a shot at Paradise? (It may not be the legendary land that John Milton imagined in the 17th century, but I am sure that just like his winding tale of Man’s fall from grace, “epic” would be an apt descriptor.) As we made our way back around the lake and through the gauntlet of competing karaoke machines (no less than a dozen within fifty yards of each other, each turned up to full volume with singers belting out their favorite dissonant Chinese folksongs), I knew we were on the right path now.

Children’s Paradise might be more appropriately named Rusty’s Paradise, as the array of carnival rides had more iron oxide than paint on them, but who lets a little thing like lockjaw hold them back from an afternoon of spinning and whirling? Not this Foreign Service family with recently updated tetanus shots!

Because two tall blondes don’t stand out enough in the middle of the Middle Kingdom, we decided to take a spin on this strange ride that followed a track about eight feet off the ground. Each cart had a steering wheel that let the riders turn the cart 360 degrees, it had a power switch that let the riders come to a complete stop at any time, and my favorite amenity, a button to change the “radio station.” (From the ground, this didn’t look too high, but as someone with an ever-growing fear of heights, I would like to mention that eight feet is a lot higher when you are eight feet off the ground than it is when you are looking up at it. Thad, ever the helpful one, reassured me that if we fell, we would only break some bones, not die. Thank you for that.)

This little cart excursion was followed by one of my all-time favorite amusement park rides- the Tilt-o-Whirl! I may be terrified of heights and embarrass myself my crab-crawling across the glass floor of the Macau Tower, 1,000 feet in the air,  but I can spin in circles all day long. Dizzy rides are the best rides! People’s Park’s Tilt-o-Whirl, like everything else, was rusty, and the seatbelts didn’t work, but we figured centrifugal force would keep us from flying onto some sharp, rusty chunk of metal. With no worries, we paid our ten yuan each and boarded the ride, as the only riders, tilting and whirling to our hearts’ content.

Feeling pleased with our Children’s Paradise stint, we wandered through the rest of the park, watching several different dance groups and strolling through the aisles of toys and souvenirs for sale. At one such kiosk, movement caught my attention and I turned, only to see a metal stand on which hung a bunch of tiny plastic bottles, each one containing a single baby turtle. What?!?  Those are living creatures put in itty-bitty jars with just a bit of water and no food.

Michelle to the rescue!

I took it upon myself to “save” two of these tiny creatures. After examining my choices and picking the two that still looked the most robust, Thad paid for my purchases and some turtle food and we decided it was time to head home. My new buddies, Gong Bao and Ji Ding (their names are Chinese for kung pao chicken, literally meaning Palace Style and Chicken Cutlet) needed a new tub filled with fresh water and a roadside brick on which to bask. I’m going to give these miniscule reptilian family members a palatial home that lives up to ol’ Gong Bao’s moniker. (Now, if only these little guys last longer than my goldfish did. I had to convince my niece, who met my goldfish via Facetime, that she couldn’t see them again because they are out playing with their fish friends.)

While I miss the acres upon acres of grass, just waiting for me to throw a blanket on it and lounge away an afternoon with a book, my Idaho park excursions never entailed a discussion of our chances of getting tetanus or how to care for tiny turtles. Chalk this one up for the Chinese.

(No people or animals were harmed in the adventures of this entry.)

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