Adding Pages

Wednesday morning I left Shenzhen for a 7 day business trip. The journey this time involves traveling for 4 days in northern China around the Shanghai/Nanjing area, and then 3 days in Seoul, South Korea. We will return to China via Hong Kong on the 9th of March.

I realized when renewing our Chinese visas in the U.S. last month that my passport was almost full of stamps. Only 2 pages remained blank by the time we returned to mainland China. Matt only had 3 pgs left, but Dean was ok with about 8 pgs remaining. My first thought was - cool! I'm a real world traveler. My second thought was yikes, I'm not sure what happens if you try to go through customs without any open spaces for a stamp, and I don't want to find out.

Fortunately, getting new pages added to our passports was pretty easy and a fairly painless process. We were able to make an appointment with the U.S. Consulate office in Guanzhou. On Tuesday Matt went by car, which took about two and a half hours to get there. After 45 minutes of waiting and a payment of $164 (I thought it was pretty steep at $82 a piece), our passports now hold an additional 12 pages, or 24 if you count front and back. We should be good to go for an another year or so.

American Idol 10

Matt and I are hooked on American Idol Season 10. We only get a few English speaking channels in our Shenzhen apartment. "Star World" on channel 85 plays non-stop popular shows from the U.S. (How I Met Your Mother, Gary Unmarried, 2-1/2 Men), Europe (Britain's Next Top Model) and Australia (Top Chef with kids ages 8-12). The shows are usually a season or two behind, or at least trailing episodes airing in the States by several weeks. We've recently caught watched a few episodes of Glee season 1 and I think they just started showing episodes from season 2.

However, with American Idol, we think we're only day or two behind. The shows that air in the U.S. on Tuesday night air in Shenzhen either Wednesday or Thursday evening. They then air for a week on repeat, showing at least twice a day every day at various times. Sometimes they air 3 episodes back-to-back, like a mini marathon. Thanks to constant reruns on the weekends, we're all caught up.

I've seen more American Idol in China than I ever watched in the U.S. Matt had never seen more than 2 episodes in a season, but he's familiar with almost all contestants in the top 24 this year.

I don't think we'll be able to vote since we can't watch the show live, but we're both cheering on Casey Abrams, the Seth Rogan look-alike. I think he's very talented and he reminds me of my brother Will.

Go Casey, we want to catch you on many reruns to come!

PP Weekend

It's Sunday night and I can't help but think that weekends go by way too fast. This one was no exception. We didn't have any plans, which was fine by me, and the weather was beautiful - sunny and 70's. Pretty perfect.

On Saturday morning Dean woke up early as usual around 6 am. He's adjusted back to China time and wakes up at almost the same time every day rain or shine. While contemplating what to spend the day doing, I decided to pull out the plastic training potty we bought right after Christmas and start getting the little guy familiar with it. He's become very fascinated with the toilet lately, and this week started saying the words "pee pee" and "poo poo" for the first time.

At 19 months old, Dean is still a little young for potty training by today's U.S. standards, but he's ancient by Chinese standards. Every Chinese person I've met with young children began potty training as soon as the baby was born. Most babies don't wear diapers during the day by 6 months unless traveling or special occasions such as going out to dinner. They often wear "split-crotch" pants which are not sewn closed between the legs. I've lost count of how many bare baby bums I've seen hanging out in the open, but I've not been here long enough to avoid staring a little when a person holding a baby suddenly dangles them over a bush or trash can to use the bathroom.

Before moving to China one of my coworkers sent me 2 pairs of split-crotch pants for Dean. I had a good laugh showing them off to friends and family. Matt and I talked about transitioning to them when we moved here, but in reality, it was just too foreign for us to tackle. Plus, diapers are easy to find here and cost the same or a little less than in the U.S. depending on where you buy them.

While in the U.S. I talked with my Aunt Sally who said she was able to potty train quickly using a bare bottom / no pants for a day method. Since we don't have carpet in our apartment, I figured it was harmless and worth a try.

At first it worked great. Dean was excited and happy the first 2-3 times I asked him if he wanted to use the potty. An hour into the training process he even ran to the plastic bowl by himself and proceeded to use it while Matt and I looked on in astonishment. Ha - how easy! I thought.

I'm not sure what happened after that - maybe he tired of the "game" we were playing? About 3 hours in he refused to play along, growling and screaming in revolt when I would ask if he was ready to use the potty. He then began deliberately running away from me when he had to go, and before I could catch him there would be a trail of pee pee down the hall or in the bedroom. The funny thing is that he knew what happened, and would say "uh oh, pee pee" while pointing to the drips and puddles all over the house.

After a couple hours of this I was done. I gave up and put a diaper back on him. It's just not going to happen in a day.

My new plan is to wait until it gets a little warmer outside, then try putting split-crotch pants on Dean and spend the day playing in the park next to our apartment with the little red potty in tow. Matt thinks this is a terrible idea, and is embarrassed by the idea of our little guy's "junk" hanging out in the open. We'll keep you posted on the progress...

Hit the Reset Button

I've been in a good mood all week, and today is no exception. It's sunny again, but I don't think that's the only reason there's a smile on my face. We returned to China from a whirlwind 2-week trip to USA late last Thursday night. While we were in the States, in between working days, I spent almost all of my time with family. Simply put, it was wonderful.

I told my mom once that I feel like I have an internal "Dean" meter that goes up and down based on how much time I get to spend with the little guy. When I travel a lot for work or if I'm working too much overtime, the meter gets low. I start feeling bitter about working, guilty for not getting home before his bedtime, and anxious because I feel like he's growing so fast and I'm missing out. I'm sure this is normal for working moms, but in Shenzhen,the few expat (aka foreigner) moms I've met stay at home with kids while their husbands work. My coworkers with children have family take care of their kids. It' a little lonely sometimes in the working mom world because I don't have a support network here like I do in USA.

While in the States, I got to reconnect with my working mom friends as well as family. We shared stories of how much our kids have changed and what their latest funny tricks are. It was refreshing and healing, and made me realize that in addition to my "Dean" meter, I've got a friend/family meter inside, too.

I also have to mention that while we were in the US, I tried to eat my weight in CHEESE. It's so expensive in Shenzhen, and tough to find sometimes, so we eat it very rarely in China. I might just have a food meter inside, and right now it's still full of Chik Fil A, cheese, and the wonderful home-cooked meals our families made for us while we were in town.

We were away from the states for almost 7 full months, and it was very tough at times at times. China is such an amazing place to live and work, but sometimes it gets to be too much. In January, I found myself feeling bitter about living here and being so far away from friends and family. When we left Hong Kong on Feb 2nd, I wasn't sure I wanted to come back.

I think my feelings are probably normal for expats living abroad. When the time came for us to return, I was still a little hesitant about coming back to Shenzhen. What I didn't realize is that 2 weeks in the US, our home country, was healing and filling in such amazing ways.

Matt and I both have hit the reset button. We've spent the past week enjoying all of our favorite Chinese foods, like fresh noodle bowls and dumplings, and talking about the funny things we've seen, like a guy moving a sofa on the back of his bicycle. We're also looking forward to friends and family who plan to visit us late spring and summer. We don't plan on living here forever, so sharing our experiences with others gives us good material to laugh about in the future.

Hello again from China

Wow, it's been too long since I've written. I've told family and a few friends several reasons why -no time, not traveling for work, nothing new to say, yadda yadda yadda... but they are all just excuses. The real reason is that I just haven't felt like it.

Today is different though. This morning I awoke at 4:30 am with a flood of happiness. No, I'm not on drugs, and I'm sure this good mood won't last forever, but I feel the need to share it with everyone I can! I heard birds chirping outside - a rare event from our 17th floor apartment - and it made me so happy I opened several windows to let in "fresh" air (as fresh as a city of 14+ million people in China can have). Spring is on the way to Shenzhen.

It was cold here this winter, much colder than I expected. the lows were not below 40, with an average daily temp around 50. That doesn't sound so bad, right? Well of course not in the USA - we have central heating. The buildings in Shenzhen and most places in China, our apartment included, do not have central heating. That means when you come inside, you don't ever remove your coat. Depending on where you are, you may ADD a layer instead of removing.

We spent a lot of time in January huddling around a space heater. We only have 1, but we should have invested in more. The average temp in our apartment has been below 60 since mid December. I am very happy to see the sun today!

There are so many things I want to write and catch up on, but I think it's best to finish this post now before Dean demands my attention. At 19 months old, he's not very patient. I hope the weather is sunny and beautiful today wherever you are in the world.

Christmas is a comin'

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve! I can't help but have mixed feelings about the holidays this year, especially since we'll be spending it without family. It's Dean's 2nd Christmas, and at 17 months old we think he's going to get into the groove of opening presents very quickly. I'm really looking forward to his excitement and giggles when we first rip into the packages under the tree.

We bought an artificial tree and lights at Walmart in Shenzhen. The tree is 6' tall and the lights are colored LED's that twinkle. It took 2 strands to make it around the tree, but they aren't designed to plug into each other, so the top half of the tree does one pattern of blinking while the bottom half does a different blinking pattern. At first, Matt constantly tried to sinc the lights so the tree would look uniform, but Dean always manages to find the control boxes tucked into the branches. He clicks a few times and then the lights are off dancing in different patterns again.

We decorated the tree with homemade ornaments. Around Thanksgiving I met a new friend with 2 young boys, and her apartment in the same complex we live in has an oven. Oh, what a luxury! We only have a gas burner in our place, but I digress... Sarah invited us over to make salt-dough ornaments the first weekend in Dec. We baked them in her oven, and then the following Saturday she came over to our place with her boys and together we painted the ornaments using Folkart paint from my office. When they were dry, we tied ribbon on them and hung them from the tree.

As for Christmas gifts, we were fortunate to have both sets of Dean's grandparents visit us in the month of November, and they brought lots of gifts in their suitcases. Matt's parents came first and they brought the gifts unwrapped, thinking they could get gift paper here to wrap the presents. No luck! So the gifts are wrapped beautifully in Shenzhen Daily newspapers and black trash bags. We warned my parents that we couldn't find wrapping paper, so they wrapped the gifts in advance. We eventually found very small rolls of paper with holiday Disney characters on them at Walmart. When I say small I mean there's hardly enough on the roll to wrap a shoebox, but we're making it work.

It's surprising how many Christmas decorations there are around the city. I'm told it hasn't always been this way, but that the influence from once British governed Hong Kong is the cause, particularly in the past 5 years. The Coastal City mall next to my office put up elaborate sleighs and snow-themed decorations throughout, some with moving parts. My favorite "scene" is a set of 3 penguins that dance and strum guitars while singing. It's something you would expect to see on a Disney ride. The Garden City mall near our apartment, on the other hand, took the decorations in a different direction. There's a giant pink bunny standing just inside the entrance surrounded by red poinsettias. Move over Santa, the Easter bunny is taking over.

Speaking of Santa, I saw him last night at the Coastal City mall. He is the skinniest Santa I've ever seen! Tall and scrawny, with dark black sideburns peeking out from under his white "hair" and beard. I hope to take Dean to the mall tomorrow to get a picture with him, and we might need to borrow Sarah's oven to bake extra cookies to set out.

Ahhhh that new car smell

Simon, the head manager in our Plaid Asia office, just bought a car last Saturday. This is a really big deal for him. No one else in the Asia office owns a car, and I'm not even sure that any of them have ever driven a car, either. Most people take the bus or a taxi to and from the office each day.

Cars here are very expensive luxury items. They cost more to buy in China than in the U.S. Gas costs over $4 per gallon and parking - if you can find a spot - will set you back big time. The parking deck in our building costs over $120 US per month, plus people also have to pay monthly fees to park their cars in the decks under the high rise apartment buildings all over town.

Simon's car is a brand spankin' new black Volkswagen Passat with leather interior. I told him today I wanted to see it and he jumped up from his desk and said "want to go now?! I need to put something in there this afternoon anyway".

On our way down to the garage he informed me that the car was really smelly, and he thinks the smell is bad for his health. I laughed when I opened the door, sat down in the passenger seat, and took a deep breath of "new car smell." It was pretty powerful, but nothing a few weeks of driving with the windows down won't cure.

Instead of leaving the windows down, Simon cut up an onion and scattered pieces in the back seat. He said he read online that onion is known for absorbing odors. I've never heard of this and I think he's crazy (which I also told him), but I'll let you know if it works. Seems to me he's just trading one smell for another, and he needs to track down some baking soda instead.