Emma’s Blog

Okay, this one is just short, as Greta and I have lots of activities to be getting on with today (cuddles, feeding, more cuddles, cute facial expressions, unbelievable nappies, extra cuddles…).  I just need to get two things off my chest.  The first is this: don’t think you’re safe crossing the road pushing a pram.  Not only do cars, buses and motorbikes absolutely not stop or even swerve for you, they positively seem to aim for us.  I did think this was just the typical rudeness and arrogance one encounters everyday on the roads here, but I’ve now discovered that it is actually because driver’s licences come out of cornflake boxes.  They really do.  So it’s no surprise that the bit about driving (on a road! with other traffic! oh god, negotiating corners, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings…!) is somewhat more complicated and less successful than opening the cornflake box and not getting milk on your licence.  And if you don’t eat cornflakes, like me, you can pay a “friendship fee” to the man at the licencing office and he’ll open the cornflake box for you.  (Really, I’m not going through what I did in Germany to get a licence, I’m paying a “fee” and someone else will eat my cornflakes and hand me a licence). Excellent system.  Then I’m going to get behind the wheel of our car and aim for a few pedestrians myself. And the second thing is this: we’ve had regular power shortages for the last few days.  Which wouldn’t be too much of a problem except that it’s over 35 degrees and the aircon doesn’t work without power…Everytime I call the “management office” (read: another example of the maximum employment policy) they say “we know, you have no power”.  Which is great, but I wish they’d actually try and fix the problem, instead of cheerfully grinning, like they knew it first.  On Friday and again today, the power was out for so long that the town power office actually sent a few repairmen to have a look at the problem (not solve it, of course!). This was the only thing that made me laugh about the whole power disaster - the town power men wear blue overalls and yellow and red hard hats and look for all the world like little Lego men, running around the complex with big torches and no clue.  Today though, the Lego man had a nasty fag sticking out of his little Lego mouth, which really destroyed my illusions about clean, wholesome Lego men and which fag went the way of so many other smelly cigarettes which cross my path (ever seen a Lego man change his expression?).  But he couldn’t fix the power either, so the similarity with the plastic play figures isn’t quite gone…

So we’re back in China after a six-week break in Germany.  (Okay, my delightful husband worked every single day but I had a lovely break, enjoyed delicious and uncontaminated food, saw lots of friends and didn’t get stared at, poked or pinched once).  I knew I was on my way back to China as soon as the plane took off in Germany - as a heavily pregnant woman, I made one final dash for the loo before the plane started to take-off.  The crafty Chinese woman sitting a few rows behind me saw her chance, grabbed all her stuff and installed herself in my seat before I made it back (why my husband didn’t notice that it was no longer me sitting beside him but rather a 4-ft Chinese woman is a further mystery, or maybe he thought I was practising the blending-in thing).  Having loudly defended my seat and sent the interloper scurrying back to her seat, I endured the take-off before making another toilet run.  This time a Chinese gentleman attempting to remove his (clearly well over the 7kg limit) handluggage from the overhead locker managed to throw it down the aisle, hitting a fellow passenger in the head and landing about 2cm in front of my bulging belly.  I’ve now taken to walking around with my hands forming a protective barrier over Mini.  Then another lovely gentleman decided that although we were sitting in the middle bulkhead seats and had covered the ground in front of our seats with our bags, jackets and other paraphenalia, that was unfortunately the quickest way to see his mate on the other side of the plane, so he just bodily climbed over us (hello, lady with a baby!), trampled all over our things and merrily made his way to converse with his friend. Welcome to China…(Where the pretext - I’m right mate, never mind about the rest of youse, reigns supreme.) Back in NeverNever Land, I’m trying to give up the habit of educating the population, as I realise that the sheer force of numbers is against me. Unfortunately, middle-aged men with  filthy fags hanging out of their mouths in my hallway, next to me at the fruit shop, mishandling the goods whilst ashing all over them or otherwise in my way are having a hard time of it this week, as I regularly remove the offending smoke from their mouths and gleefully stamp on it whilst they (for once it’s not me!) are left open-mouthed.  Their kind get their own back, however, as not once has a man offered me a seat on the subway in Shanghai - it’s always the women, who know what it’s like to be carrying a watermelon in their bellies…

I am sure many of my faithful readers will be waiting with baited breath to hear how the move within China has transpired.  Now you need wait no longer - I’m pleased to report that no-one was strangled for incompetence or laziness, had to die for the cause (although one person nearly did - on which more later) or suffered a meltdown (my delightful husband is very relieved he won’t be visiting me in a Chinese jail).  We’ve moved into our new apartment and despite my delightful husband disappearing on a business trip the morning our boxes arrived, I’ve managed to unpack and settle us in.  Any activity involving me and China must result in some amusing tales though, and here are a few… …The removalists unpacked quite a few of the boxes for me in our new apartment (a pregnant belly occasionally does work wonders, although I’m still yet to get a seat on a bus/train) and even put some of the furniture back together.  The bookshelf was the best.  Assembling the double bookshelf was the least of the problems, understanding quite what I meant by “and then put all the books onto the shelves” was clearly more difficult.  This I know as whilst some of the books are on the shelves, they are all lying down flat, instead of standing upright, making them impossible to locate which is why I’ve been making up recipes for three days and take up twice the room, which is why only half the books fitted into the shelves…  …On day two I could smell gas.  The real estate agent sent the town gas man, who unfortunately didn’t arrive before the digital TV installer-man.  Who couldn’t fix the digital TV, but thought that probably the best way to mull over the problem was to light up a cigarette (IN MY LIVING ROOM) and wait to see how long it would take the gas to explode.  Luckily (for me, not for him), I exploded before the gas leak did, expelled the errant repairman and his offending firestick from the house and since then we’ve had no gas leak, but also no TV… … Today the dryer was installed.  I never knew that this required the presence of the landlady, her elderly parents (who, every time I complained during “check-in” that the apartment hadn’t been sufficiently cleaned or renovated, were forced to drop to their knees and scrub at the offending spot, which would probably tug at the heartstrings of any normal person - not me though, I’ve been in China too long to fall for that trick…), the real estate agent rep, myself and the installer-man (who, having arrived last, nearly didn’t get a spot in the rather tiny room where the dryer stands).  Given that this was the third time in as many days that the landlady had shown up in what is no longer “her” apartment (that’s what the rental contract is all about, but that seems to have escaped her and she [and her elderly parents and various siblings] seem to think they can wander around “my” home at will), I finally lost patience and invited them all to wait outside the door.  The dryer-man and I understood each other a treat (hand signals, dancing, smiling - it was a real party in my laundry) and got the job done much faster than the five others had in mind… …Despite these amusements, it’s very exciting to have moved, I feel like a kid at Disneyworld as I can buy milk when I want and my Ob/Gyn is only a short train ride and no longer a plane trip away.  I’ve got to stop staring at pregnant Western women though, I seem to have developed a habit of doing that over the last few days and I’m not going to make any friends by doing exactly what DROVE ME BANANAS in our last town.   It’s okay to have my mouth hanging open about the milk though…

At home in Perth I’ve got a good friend who has a gorgeous 4 year-old who answers the door in a Wiggles bathing costume, complete with elbow and knee pads.  The first time I saw this it frightened me, now I just want to know if I can borrow the fightin’ gear… I’ve realised lately that the elbows-out-and ram-your-way-through society is alive and well in China and this week I’ve had a few priceless examples that I wanted to share with you.  It was recently pointed out to me that a constant feature running through Chinese history is the thought that China is the centre of the universe. Not only is this so, this behaviour is exhibited every day by a scarily large number of people whom I seem to come into direct contact with. Nevermind stealing taxis from under your nose or smoking in the elevators, we’re talking seriously CHEEKY behaviour.  No wonder someone once told me that in China it is easier to just do what you want and ask for forgiveness later if the shit hits the fan than to start out by asking permission. When in Rome… On Monday  I was in Shanghai, having a pretty bad day.  Too many people had spat in my earshot and eyeshot, there was entirely too much hoicking and coughing up going on, too much smoking in front of No Smoking signs and so on.  Waiting patiently in a queue to buy a subway ticket, one punter who clearly had better things to be doing than waiting in line pushed to the front to avail himself of the next ticket machine.  Too much for this bunny.  I smartly tapped him on the shoulder and indicated we ALL had better things to do than queue for subway tickets but that that was tough.  He could go to the end of the line.  Which, amazingly, he did. I was then very pleased to see him take on the “Queue Nazi” role and start harassing the next pushers-in to get to the back.  Chalk up one for me…. That victory was sweet yet shortlived at home today.  Our chronically broken doorbell/door opening thingo was due for its monthly repairs session.  (This involves two blokes spending twenty minutes loudly resoldering the contacts and ringing the door bell downstairs A LOT, chatting over the video intercom etc).  A power point was required to plug in the soldering machine (which, incidentally, I think is available at every hardware shop and can be used to solve just about any problems around the house - I’m going to get one and use it to zap my husband when he doesn’t behave).  So fix-it man just lunges for the first available power point.  Regardless of the fact that there is a power cord coming from it, attached to a multiple point board.  Having ripped my computer, the internet, the phone and the lamp out of the wall, he barely acknowledges my pained cry, proceeds to plug in his soldering machine and sets about playing with the doorbell.  He needed a power point, he doesn’t care what is attached to it and he’s certainly not going to waste time asking…  So I’m hoping my shipment of protective gear arrives soon and I’m going to start acting like a local.  The wiggles bathing costume is really going to give them something to stare at!  Update: Not long after writing this, we set off from our apartment building for a foot massage.  Exiting the lift on the ground floor, we discover someone has moved in to the ground floor apartment.  How we know this? They’ve had a small housewarming party and instead of putting all the Chinese takeaway containers (yes, you can get Chinese takeaway in China) in a plastic bag and perhaps even in the bin (a further 10 steps away), they’ve just thrown all the containers out the door into the hallway, the floor is covered with chili sauce and food remnants and the whole communal hallway reeks (a lot of Chinese food really doesn’t smell that good).  But nevermind, someone else will surely come past and clean up the mess - one isn’t expected, after all, to actually be responsible and clean up after oneself, there’s always someone worse off who’ll have to do it… (more…)

It’s Friday afternoon and I’m supposed to be studying my Chinese textbooks.  However, given my overwhelming lack of success in the Chinese classroom this morning, I thought I’d first waste a little study time recounting some random thoughts of the last few days. Each chapter of our reading comprehension book has one relatively easy text (we’re back on the subject of loose bowels and visits to the doctor, which is always amusing) and one more difficult text.  Both have questions (true/false, multiple guess or where you actually have to scratch down a few characters) to be answered once you’ve read and comprehended (see name of book) the text.  Today’s second text eluded me.  I tried to explain this to the teacher, who, in a very Chinese, pragmatic kinda way said “Don’t worry about understanding the text, just answer the questions relating to the text, try to tell me what the author was trying to achieve with this text - what is the main point of the tale?”.  Which just proves my point that you don’t need to actually know something to succeed academically here… I’m actually lucky I made it to Uni at all this morning - I jumped into a cab and was nearly blown back out the door by the most rancid, foul-smelling stench emenating from - the driver. Golly, it was truly horrible.  And whatever it was, she continued to eat it with gusto all the way to Uni, leaving me sitting in the back seat with the window wound all the way down, head hanging out and reminding myself A LOT of the car-sick family dog in the cartoons. (more…)

I’ve recently been telling lots of stories about shopping in our town.  Most of these involve the tragic lack of milk and the fact that the supermarket never seems to have what I’m looking for. I’m just back from a lovely three week break in Australia and I’ve really enjoyed shopping there and actually being able to buy what I set out to get and not just gathering whatever happens not to look like the result of yet another food production scandal in China.So imagine my surprise when my delightful husband and I wander off to the supermarket this afternoon. We’re after a bit of grub to fill the fridge after our fabulous 2 week trip to Japan (on which more later) and a few sundry items (does anyone else seem to need as many extension cords as we do?).  We battle our way into the supermarket (along with the oh, about 200,000 others who seem to have nothing else to do except frustrate me in my path to nutrition) and I practically push the trolley (called a “trundler” in NZ - how hysterical is that?) into the display pyramid of Nivea moisturising cream (my favourite, until now unobtainable in China and all of a sudden here it is, even without the ubiquitous and definitely carcenogenic whitening agent).  I quickly gather a few tubs together, on the basis that you have to buy what’s available at the time, otherwise it’ll go out of stock and you’ll never see it again.  This is no Priceline, you know.  I’d done A LOT of shopping for the baby in Australia.  Just about everything you can buy for a baby that doesn’t require a mortgage to pay it off is made in China, yet I’d never seen any of it here.  Now, sudddenly, there are aisles and aisles filled with reasonable looking baby products.  Even some I know from home.  And clothes, accessories, nappies…you name it, they’ve got it in stock. My eyes really boggled at the sight of not one but three different baby bath thermometers (on every baby list, yet I couldn’t find one AT ALL in Australia or New Zealand).  I’m going back tomorrow to buy the rest of this gear - as my delightful husband says “what you have you have” (very pragmatic, those Germans) and I’m really going to be an attraction to the population of our little town carrying a baby bath down the road.  Then it was off to examine the (usually) thin pickings in the “import” section.  Cue the sudden arrival of packaged cakes (very good if you don’t have a cake to celebrate your delightful husband’s birthday…) in four different varieties.  I’m suspicious.  Has the supermarket been listening to my whingeing? (Did I hurt its feelings?) Off downstairs to discover that the cheese department hasn’t been enlarged and the selection of kiwifruit is still as soft and sloppy as ever.  My delightful husband is promptly collared standing next to the sausage cabinet (how undignified) for a quick interview in English with a local…no idea, I lost interest and wandered off whilst my delightful husband answered questions about his sausage buying habits.Filled the trolley with “organic” fruit and vegetable (to the degree you’d actually believe that stuff labelled organic was, in fact, organic and hadn’t just rolled through an “organic” labeller…), baguette, cheese and realised with irritation I’d passed the milk aisle in my haste to escape the interviewing sausage.  Two runs through the milk aisle confirmed my suspicion - no milk.  Plus ca change…   

Faithful correspondents (or patient readers of my emails) will know that my delightful husband and I are expecting our first child in July 2008. This is stupendous news for us and we’re very excited about the imminent arrival of our life-changing little bundle of joy. (I’m even prepared not to be the epicentre of my delightful husband’s attention anymore). And the child is to be grown and born in China, which brings with it it’s very own set of special challenges and superb blog topics.Ante-natal care in China is fabulously amusing - I went to see a Chinese Ob/Gyn when we first suspected I was pregnant. My delightful husband nearly didn’t make it into the consulting rooms (women only, but lots of them - as in you can just charge in on someone else’s consultation and have a look at the action while you’re waiting for your turn and there’s nothing like a pregnant westerner having a fit…). The Ob/Gyn I saw charged me about $3,50 for an ultrasound, a urine test and a consultation and told me I was pregnant, that I should have progesterone injections in my buttocks (painful!) for 10 days and take Vitamin E daily.  Apart from that, she gave me no useful advice (eat what you like, drink what you like, do what you like) and basically told me that I should go away, let the baby grow inside of me and come back in 9 months for the big event.  My delightful husband quickly averted a screaming meltdown on my part by promising to take me to Shanghai for some “proper” expat-styley ante-natal care and since then I’ve been flying there once a month to see a lovely Scottish chappie who just thinks I should relax more and enjoy growing a small person inside of me. I’ve had terrible morning sickness and a heightened sense of smell, which is an appalling thing in a country with open drains and smells by which you can make your way through the city blindfolded.  My best experience so far was when, having struggled to put a bowl of porridge with banana and milk inside of me before leaving for work, having had a serious discussion with the toilet bowl prior to leaving the house, I was waiting at the bus stop.  A bus pulled up, not mine, which was a pity as a women sitting by a window pulled it open and vomited out the window at my feet. This sparked a chain reaction on my part, leaving the other 50-odd people standing at the bus stop able to head to work with a story about a vomiting westerner.  I got on the next bus, convinced the world was against me.   A daily diet of cabbage, soy sauce, garlic and spring onions means some pretty potent smells are created by the city’s inhabitants.  At the commencement of any taxi ride, my delightful husband has taken to instructing me to pull my scarf over my face and breathe through my mouth to prevent me from vomiting in the taxi before we’ve told the poor driver where we want to go… I’ve had terrible cravings for McDonald’s food, which has been a real strain on my nutritional value system.  I regularly submit to these cravings, much to the delight of my delightful husband, who gleefully accompanies me under the Golden Arches and much to my chagrin, as I’m convinced that the Child Protection Agencies will remove my child from my care if they know I’ve been eating junk food during my pregnancy. And I’m loving our monthly trips to Shanghai or Beijing for western-style restaurant meals (have been unable to approach the meat counter for some months now) and plundering Carrefour for German food supplies (Schwarzbrot cravings…), my delightful husband for bringing me home custard and cream from his business trips and a little bodysuit we’ve been given for our child which reads “Made in China”.  Stay posted kids, it’ll be hilarious.   

Last night I was browsing through an “expat” magazine written for inhabitants of Beijing.  It really is fascinating to see what is available in the big smoke in terms of music, nightlife, restaurants, shops and the arts.  And needless to say, I’ve made a rather long list of things I’d like to do the next time we find ourselves in the nation’s capital.  (We only have two bars here, no music, one club, no restaurants that don’t involve Korean, Japanese or Chinese cuisine, plenty of complete rubbish in the shops and not even a lick of graffiti to cover the arts section).  The first thing on my list of things to see though is the McDonald’s drive-through in Beijing, apparently the only one in China, which opened in 2007.  This I’ve got to see.  Given the limited range of driving “skills” demonstrated on the roads (and footpaths…) here (there is cash available for drivers who manage to drive for 10 whole minutes without displaying any “uncivilised behaviour”) I find it very hard to believe that a drive-through would actually work the way it is supposed to.  Here, if things aren’t moving fast enough in your lane, you just pop over into the oppposite direction to move along a little faster, thus either causing a head-on collision with the traffic (legally) using that lane or, better, you come to a stand-off involving a lot of shouting, fist-waving and determined horn-honking. Alternatively, of course, it’s absolutely allowed to drive on the footpath (cars rule, pedestrians and bicycles get out of the way, except if they are me, I make a stand and occasionally punch offending cars to make my point.  That irritates my delightful husband enormously who correctly estimates that one day, I am going to get myself (and probably him) into a lot of trouble like this.) Red lights are optional at all times, traffic signs and one-way streets are similarly merely suggestions and certainly not rules. Driving the wrong way up a one way street is perfectly acceptable, provided it means you get to your goal sooner than your driving competitors. Now just imagine the chaos in the drive-through.  Priceless, it’ll be a whole afternoon’s entertainment for me…

My delightful husband recently gave me tickets to hear Lang Lang (fabulous concert pianist for the uninitiated) in Beijing.  In the brand new National Centre for the Performing Arts, no less, which is absolutely worth a visit in its own right (nicknamed “The Egg”, it sits in the middle of a lake, which you need to pass underneath via a glass-topped tunnel in order to gain entry to the various Mahogony-lined, similarly Egg-shaped concert halls).  Beautiful.   Lots of things about living in China are different to living in Europe/Australia/wherever.  Including how one behaves at a concert.  Following a short description not of the wonderful piano music and two encores, but of the behaviour of the audience, which had me shocked and speechless and my delightful husband grinning at how China had managed to flummox me AGAIN: Concert begins.  Large number of small children take this as their cue to begin squirming in their expensive seats.  Parents seated either side of the “Little Emperors” stare intently at the stage and pretend it is not their child causing the ruccus.  Elderly woman behind us begins carefully unwrapping water bottle from the loudest plastic bag in the world.   Some 5 minutes later she’s managed to free the water bottle from its plastic prison and takes a noisy gulp.  Re-wraps water bottle in plastic bag, carefully knotting it shut.  Passes plastic bag containing water bottle to elderly man sitting behind us, who begins the “free the water bottle” action with considerably less dexterity but lots more noise.  He finally also gets a sip, repackages the bottle and passes it back to grandma, who stows it carefully in her cavernous (also plastic) bag.  Couple in front of us begin discussion about which piece is currently being played (the first one, you idiots, and you’ve got a programme, so it can’t be that difficult to ascertain) and then, having worked out that they’ve come to a piano concert, begin to use the binoculars they’ve brought alone to examine Lang Lang, his sequined suit and the grand in detail.  Unfortunately, female half of couple not so good with technology (she who is free from blame throws the first stone) and is looking into the wrong end of the binos.  Nevermind, good reason for a bout of racous laughter.  Grandma and Grandpa get going on the water bottle again. Thirsty work, this concert.  Kid in the next aisle leans dangerously far over the railing, parents stoically ignore him and let mere strangers save him from certain plunging death.  Kid responds with a scream.  (I feel like screaming). Couple next to my delightful husband so excited by lovely piano music that they loudly begin singing along.  More water bottle in plastic bag action. Everyone who’s got a mobile phone with a camera gets it out for a photo (with flash!) of the genius at the piano. Concert hall employees wander around during the music, walkie-talkies squawking, everyone who has a standing room ticket (I cannot believe they sell these in China!) wanders around trying to steal a seat off someone who’s gone out for a smoke. Grandma is thirsty again and gets going on the plastic bag containing the water bottle (it must be empty soon!). Loud discussion in front of us prompts me to knock offender on the shoulder and indicate using my best teacher face that he should save it for later. This later nearly prompts biffo in the foyer, as he seeks me out to remonstrate loudly in Chinese about me having the nerve to ask him to be quiet during a classical piano concert.  Grandma passes the plastic bag game to Grandpa. I’m convinced the people in the second class hard-sleeper train we took for 16 hours on the way to Beijing behaved better than the patrons at the concert, but the music was nonetheless enchanting, the audience went bananas at the end, Lang Lang played 2 encores and received at least 6 HUGE bunches of flowers from adoring fan(ettes as my delightful husband would call them), and the NCPA is a building worth seeing, even if you do risk a punch-up…   

Your faithful correspondent feels she owes an update on the precarious housing situation to those who have responded so kindly to her last frantic posting. The movers arrived last Thursday.  As predicted, they were a complete bunch of muppets.  After they stacked all our artworks on the (wet) lawn and proceeded to balance the “fragile” boxes one on top of each other, I headed downstairs to vent my frustration.  A full-blown screaming match ensued, complete with (unbelieveable, dear readers, but true) my delightful husband screaming at the movers in Chinese.  I’ve never seen him scream before and certainly never in Chinese, but it was a sight for weary minds.  (One of the movers responded to my plea not to break anything more than was already broken with “but it is all insured, if we break it for you, you get money”).  Unfortunately, the Luxembourg muppet packers had broken more than the Chinese muppet movers, so the lossages were quite high.  This was quickly remedied by a call to the friendly Luxembourg moving company and a thinly veiled threat to disclose the photos of the muppet packing job to the insurance company which yielded us a cash payout in return for silence.  Excellent. Now we are merely dealing with such trivialities as the fact that the hot water man has just removed the hot water unit from the kitchen and from the premises. (Which, dear readers, is less a problem for me than it is for my delightful husband who, in order to get me to stop screaming about the hot water last week, blithely promised to take care of the washing up from now on…). A massive amount of silicone gel has been used in the bathroom to completely block up all exits for water from the shower unit, thereby neatly solving both the leaking shower and the blocked drain problem.  And we’ve got a few spare rooms in this apartment, so the box tower is no longer in our bedroom (as Luxembourg visitors will recall) but in its very own “box tower suite”.  I unpacked like crazy on Friday and on Saturday morning we called in the one-eyed paper bandit who removed the massive feature mountain of paper, boxes and cardboard from our livingroom.  In China you can make money like this - we sold around 150 packing boxes and a whole lotta packing paper for AUD 16.  Which we promptly spent on organising ourselves a door cut into three sections to fashion a bookcase in which to store all the books which had previously been in the boxes.  And we’re going to have to go back to the door man this next weekend, as as I was sinking into bed (alone - my delightful husband couldn’t tear himself from “American Gangster”) late on Sunday night, exhausted from three days of unpacking, cleaning and repeating “I’m sure we didn’t have this much stuff in Luxembourg” a large snapping crack was heard and all of a sudden I was lying on the ground.  Yep, we broke the bed. So not only do we have no water at all in the kitchen, smelly toilets, blocked drains, a fridge in which something has already died and more stuff than we know what to do with, now we’re sleeping on the floor, enclosed by the frame of our bed (which makes us feel like kids in what the Germans call a “crawling garden” - what is the word in English??). But hey, we have floor heating, so the bed is toasty warm and at this stage, I continue to be grateful for small mercies.