Things I Love About China

Looking back, I realize that my last few posts have been pretty negative and might even give folks the impression that we don't like it here. On the contrary, we really do like China. We are having a lot of fun living here and I think all members of my family would give China two thumbs up. Environmental issues aside, we are finding this an easy, fun and fascinating post. In no particular order, here are some things that we love about Beijing.

1. My neighborhood and neighbors: Yes, we live in a gated, guarded community about 30-45 minutes outside the city. Yes, it looks like a fake Mediterranean villa community and caters to expats. But man, it is great for us. It is like Mayberry here and the kids run around from house to house with gangs of kids. They bike everywhere. We can hang out by the pool on gorgeous days. I've met so many fabulous women who help me find things, take my kids when necessary, invite us to parties or just to have coffee. It is such a friendly community and I almost immediately felt welcome and accepted. My neighbors aren't only chummy, they also have a great sense of humor.  This yields events like the "Shunyi Downs" tuk tuk races....

2. Safety: This is probably the safest place we will ever live. We have guards in our neighborhood who keep a close eye on everything, but China is a safe place even without the guards. There are really no guns anywhere here. Violent crime is quite rare and very, very rarely is it directed against expats. I love being able to bike around almost anywhere without fear. I love that my kids can run around in our compound freely.  I found the notion of guards pretty daunting at first, but soon found that they are an extremely friendly, kind bunch of gentleman who don't hesitate to pick up and comfort kids who have fallen from their bikes.

3. Bikes: Due to its completely flat terrain, Beijing is perfectly suited for biking.  Before moving here, I hadn't been on a bike for at least 25 years.  My kids, in fact, could not ride a bike.  There weren't many locations in Dallas suitable for biking IMO and transporting the bikes was a pain.  Yes, many people did bike in Oak Cliff, but it terrified me.  No way did I want my kids riding there.  Cars just aren't used to looking for pedestrians or bikers in Dallas.  Here, it is plenty dangerous, but cars are accustomed to watching for bikers.  And most streets have dedicated bike lanes that you can use to get around.  Our compound also has speed bumps everywhere, which helps make it safer for the kids to ride around.  I'm getting braver and more accustomed to zipping around exploring the area.  It is really fun to be on bicycles and I always look forward to the opportunity to go for a ride.  Violet has caught bike fever and wants to ride her bike constantly. Oh, and if you do lose a bike chain or puncture your tire, there is a guy down the street who will fix it for about a dollar.

4.  My ayi:  I, who never even had a cleaning service in the states, have a part-time ayi here who works 3 days a week.  She cleans the house and does our laundry.  She can also sew things that need repair and will go to the market if I need her to.  She can talk to the repairmen who wander in and out of the house and the bottled water guys who seem to bring whichever quantity of water they feel like bringing - not what I ordered.  She can also watch kids and get Violet off the bus if necessary. In other words, she keeps things running and makes life here much easier and more pleasant than it would be without her.  Beijing is insanely dusty and things tend to deteriorate quickly without regular mopping and scrubbing. 

5.  The city itself:  Yes, despite the grime and pollution, Beijing is an amazing place to live.  There is always something going on in this city.  You can climb the Great Wall, visit tons of ancient palaces and temples, eat some pretty amazing food and view some gorgeous vistas.  In our 4 months here, we haven't even touched the surface of all there is to see and do here.  Just hanging out at the local parks for the day yields lots of opportunity to see folks practicing tai chi, singing or playing drums, flying kites, etc. etc.  The culture isn't always pretty (hello spitting and squatty potties), but it is always fascinating and completely unlike anything we experienced in the past.

6.  Food availability:  You can get pretty much any type of food that you want in this city.  We have gazillions of restaurants serving Italian, Korean, Middle Eastern, burgers, BBQ, Tex-Mex, Spanish, etc. etc. Any fast food chain imaginable is represented here, including KFC, Pizza Hut, Papa John's, Mrs. Fields, Domino's, Subway, McDonalds (everywhere).  There is even a restaurant that copies Chipotle's offerings. The grocery store on our compound and just outside of it stocks all types of Western foodstuffs, from Chips Ahoy to Peach Tea Snapple (yay for me)!   I did do some minor hoarding of Trader Joe's stock before arriving and I'm glad to have that stash in my storage area, but those are just "nice to haves".  We've got all of the necessities right here.

7.  The schools:  My kids are lucky to attend a truly top-notch school here.  They have tons of opportunities for exploration and growth. Alex just went on a school trip to Pingyao and Ethan will go to Shanghai with the school next year.  It offers a full roster of after school activities, including gymnastics, karate, jewelry-making, cooking and Quidditch. Their teachers truly care about each of them and seem to understand their personalities and their own individual strengths and weaknesses. The school really helped us with our mid-year move and did a great job of helping my children adjust.

8.  Child-centered culture:  One side effect of the one-child policy here is that children can absolutely do no wrong.  They love them and dote on them constantly.  Although this type of spoiling isn't necessarily healthy, it does make for a nifty environment for my children.  Most restaurants have some type of children's play area with toys and books and sometimes even a TV or video games.  Brunches at the big hotels have staff in these areas who provide kids with entertainment and their own kid-friendly buffet spread.  This means that you can chat with friends and enjoy champagne and music while the kids hang in their own area.  Win, win!

9.  Transportation:  It is taking an insanely long time for my car to arrive.  We haven't seen our trusty van since we shipped it out in late January.  BUT, if you have to be without transport for such a long time, this isn't a terrible place to do it. The city has a super-cheap, efficient (albeit insanely crowded) subway system.  You can also do a lot of walking, biking and tuk-tuking...I totally think we need tuk-tuks back home.  Pretty brilliant concept and so great for grocery runs or trips to the school.  Oh, and everything here can be delivered for free.  All the restaurants have take-out menus and the grocery store will bring your stuff right to your door. 

10.  Cheap perks:  Some things here are quite expensive (hello $8 boxes of cereal), but other things are amazingly cheap.  You can have 8 x 10 or slightly bigger items framed here for about $10, that price includes the frame, glass and labor.  Tailoring is also very inexpensive so it is affordable to have suits or dresses custom-made.  You can have furniture custom-made as well or buy locally made pieces.  Original -- and often stunning -- artwork is also widely available and well-priced. 

On a clear day you can see the mountains

Before I launch into this post, I wanted to insert the necessary disclaimer that this post reflects MY views only. Not those of the US government or the State Department or anybody or anything official. Not even those of my husband.  They are mine alone.

On smoggy Beijing days when we are stuck inside due to poor air quality, one word keeps running through my mind. The word is "shame".  As in, what a shame, what a waste.  This is a great city.  Very vibrant.  It has a completely different culture for us to explore. Tons and tons of stuff to do. Pretty much every type of food you can imagine.  Lots of parks, lots of cultural stuff. Beautiful mountains just outside the city where you can hike and explore.  Acrobat shows, ancient palaces and temples, crazy and chaotic streets.  We have lots of cool culture, but you can also easily get pretty much any grocery item you want.  It REALLY can be a great place to live.  Except for the pollution.  If there is no wind a-blowing here, the pollution settles over the city. It then sits there until it rains, snows or becomes windy. I've coped with air pollution before. I mean, I'm from Dallas, right?  I definitely haven't been living my life in pristine pastoral air quality. I also lived for a year in Naples, Italy, which is a pretty polluted place as well.  That said, I've never ever seen air pollution like this. You can literally see, smell and taste it.  When I tell you it is polluted -- unless you have lived here or are currently living here -- you probably can't truly imagine how bad air pollution can be. A gorgeous, "good" air quality day here is about the same as the smoggiest day ever in Los Angeles.  And, after a couple of months here, you really do start to go with the flow most days. It is what it is.  You try to limit your childrens' outdoor activities on really bad days, perhaps you thrown a pollution mask on.  You avoid jogging outdoors and try not to exert yourself much at all since you do not want to vigorously breathe in all of the tiny nasty particles that cause cancer and lung infections.

I've been thinking about this blog post for quite some time. Right now, it is spring and very windy here.  That means lots of blue sky days. It is warming up quickly here and I can get outdoors more to explore. I've biked more here in the past month than in the past 25 years. My rambling explorations help to give me some more perspective on what is around us and how to get there.  I've found my world for the past several months is pretty compound-specific.  We do venture outside the bubble on weekends, but most weekdays I am limited to where I can walk, bike or tuk-tuk. It was also really cold and smoggy through most of February and the early parts of March. 

We were lucky enough to hang out with my cousin and her family and one of Chris' former colleagues while they visited Beijing in March.  Playing tourist definitely gave me a deeper appreciation of all of the cool stuff the city has to offer.  I would go to the Great Wall and climb about every weekend if I could.  The kids all loved the palpable energy we encountered in Beijing parks where folks gather to fly kites, practice tai-chi, exercise on the crazy-looking equipment, play drums and sing.  In fact, it definitely made Chris and I wonder (oh, for the thousandth time or so) if we should have lived downtown instead of in the 'burbs.  I won't dwell on that thought too much since that ship has sailed.  I've unpacked, hung stuff on the walls, enrolled kids in the school out here -- we are staying here in the bubble.  BUT, we plan to take the kids into  the city as much as possible.  Despite the difficulty of traveling there as a family of 5.

Anyways, my ramblings aside, my main point is that it is a real shame that environmental regulation is clearly not something that has ever been a government priority here in China.  The fast pace of growth here is really amazing to watch.  New buildings seem to rise up overnight all through the city while old ones disappear. Incomes and wages are growing by leaps and bounds even for the folks toward the bottom of society.  Lung cancer rates have also skyrocketed.  In Beijing alone, lung cancer rates have increased by 60 percent over the last decade while the smoking rate has stayed the same.  My fellow Americans back home who scoff at the EPA and other regulatory agencies might like to come here for a few weeks for a first-hand look at what occurs when business is allowed to do what they will without any serious regulation.  There are currently dead pigs in the water supply in Shanghai and record-high levels of bad air quality days all across China.  Nobody drinks the tap water here if they can afford not to and nobody feeds their children and infants Chinese formula or dairy.

I do think that we Americans can get quite complacent about these various "nuisance" regulatory agencies primarily because, for the most part, they do a pretty darn good job.  Our government tries to protect us as much as they can even while we live here in China. Our homes and work places have lots of air filters.  We drink bottled water.  The government  issues recommendations on what foods we should and should not eat.  A huge deal of the shame and waste of it all is felt by the Chinese people. People who won't just be here for 2 or 3 years.  People who have to live with the pollution and the food quality issues on a long-term basis. Who can't afford bottled water and air filters. Shame, yes.  Absolutely.  And I can tell you that they are really, really sick of it.

Here is a picture of Beijing on a clear day. Lovely, huh?  See the mountains.  That is a rare sight indeed.

What To Eat...Or Not...When in China

So, with the pigs in the river and the world news' headlines of avian flu everywhere, the subject of meal preparation is the hottest topic on the playground.  Feeding a western family in China isn't the easiest endeavor on the best of days.  Chinese dairy has been out since the melamine controversy of 2008-2009.  Most expats here buy shelf-stable milk from France or Australia and imported cheese and yogurt.  Beef and pork are apparently chock-full of chemicals and not a regular part of many people's menus even if they aren't semi-vegetarian like us. Fish and seafood are dodgy here since we aren't anywhere near the sea and I promise you don't want to eat anything from the rivers around Beijing. Chicken and eggs are currently out of favor due to avian flu concerns.  I don't think that anybody can actually catch it from these products-- especially if fully-cooked-- but the school cafeteria has stopped serving chicken and ayis everywhere advise against eating eggs.

Fruits and vegetables?  Why yes, they are lovely and plentiful.  Grown in toxic soil with all sorts of sketchy pesticides, but lovely all the same.  They kinda/sorta have the concept of organic here, but even if they didn't use pesticides on them (which is doubtful since there is nobody regulating the "organic" products) they are grown in the toxic soil and watered by the toxic rain.  We definitely eat the fruits and vegetables because I'm a thousand percent convinced that skipping them is ultimately more harmful than eating ones with pesticide residue.  We just wash them well and peel the things that we can.

I tend to fare a bit better than some moms because we were mostly vegetarian even before moving here.  I'm used to coming up with dinner ideas that involve beans, tofu, veggies and grains.  The absence of meat products doesn't really phase me.  My kids grumble a bit, but they are also accustomed to eating a predominantly vegetarian diet. I do struggle to come up with meal plans that utilize the readily available ingredients here and do not involve purchasing pricey cheese or imported goodies that may or may not be available.  Ricotta and cottage cheese cost well over $7 for a tiny container.  So, lasagna is more of a treat food than a staple.  Oddly enough, you can generally find tortillas and other Mexican food staples almost everywhere.  Well, except for Monday when I needed them to make enchiladas for Chris' birthday.  Then all of the stores within walking distance of the house didn't have any.  Rice paper was in the location where they usually store tortillas.  And that is not the same thing....at all. Rice paper enchiladas anyone? 

People cope with food safety here in a variety of ways.  Some people eat everything. including Chinese meat and dairy, while others don't eat anything Chinese.  I know that sounds almost impossible, but it is apparently somewhat manageable if you eat only processed foods and the available imported meats, fruits and vegetables. We take the middle ground, as I always try to do.  I don't feed my kids Chinese strawberries every day...or even every week, but we do eat them once a month or so.  The kids love the apples here so they eat those a lot, but I try to buy the ugly ones since they seem more likely to have fewer pesticides.  I buy imported milk and yogurt since those are staples, but we do eat Chinese cheese and sour cream occasionally. 

I know we are super lucky to have easy access to so many familiar food stuffs.  Many of Chris' colleagues headed off to consumables post where Western goods are virtually unobtainable.  So unobtainable that the state department gives you extra weight in your shipping allowance so you can bring canned goods and favorite non-perishable foods with you.  Dining out is quite affordable here and we have a huge variety of restaurants.  I've had great Thai and Italian here and we regularly munch on burritos at The Avocado Tree - a shameless knock-off of Chipotle.  Oh, and as a shameless plug for visitors, you can dine on scorpions, larva, seahorse and all sorts of other delicacies.  Totally organic, I'm sure!

Goodness Gracious, Great Wall of China

You'll have to ask Chris about the title, but I had to post some more pics on the blog. It really is super cool. I hope to get out to one stretch or another pretty often so we can see it in different seasons. The second time we actually rode this crazy toboggan down and it was just kooky kitschy fun. And totally safe I'm sure!

Inconvenient....

Our family size, that is.  I mean, I suppose we have to keep them all at this point, but we definitely have way too many kids for convenience in Asia.  When we decided to have our 3rd kiddo, it never occurred to us that fitting in a Chinese taxi or a tuk-tuk would be an issue.  Yet here we are...In a place I never expected to be, facing a complication that never occurred to me. Life is exciting, huh?

We live in the suburbs of Beijing, about 30-45 minutes from the central city.  Our kids' school is out here, as are lots of lovely people, a neighborhood where the kids can safely bike and walk and a nice array of shopping and restaurants.  We are also closer to the wall here than folks in the city.  That said, we do live in a serious expat bubble. Most of our fellow compound residents are European or American as well.  So, there isn't a ton of real, authentic Chinese culture here.  The grocery stores here cater to the ex-pats, as do the shops and restaurants.  Finding an actual Chinese restaurant near the house is amazingly difficult.  To experience "real" Chinese culture, you have to leave the bubble and go to "real" Beijing.

Since we have no car at the moment, that means we have to take a cab into the city. Beijing cabs are a tricky business and well-deserving of a separate blog post of their very own.  Our situation is even trickier because it is actually illegal for all 5 of us to go in one cab.  There are cameras everywhere that photograph the drivers on the highways -- and then issue traffic tickets.  So, cab drivers generally will not break the law and let us ride in one cab.  Even if one of us is a "baby" (yes, I know she is almost six). So, now you are up to a cost of at least $20-25 each way for our family of five to get into the city.  Plus, you get the added joy of the fact that the cab drivers appear to not communicate with each other even when they are all called at once by our housing compound staff and seem to have a chat beforehand.  So, they might, you know, do something fun like drop one set of us off at the South Gate of the Forbidden City and the other set at the West gate.  Just to test our navigation skills. Which doesn't sound that bad until you see the Forbidden City and how very, very vast and crowded the entire place is.  We were fine, really, but I digress...Hotels here do not want more than 2-3 people in a room.  Train cars don't hold more than 4 people either. I mean, a family of 4 here in China would be a very large family.  I'm somewhat used to five being an awkward number. In America, the world is definitely geared towards families of 4.  That is the size that fits in most hotel rooms, that most package deals are aimed at, etc. But China definitely takes a slight travel complication to a whole other level. Family deals here?  They mean 3 people.  Our (borrowed) tuk tuk?  Why yes, it holds 3 people!  Or 5 if you are really, um, creative.

Beijing does have an expansive, inexpensive metro system.  But it takes about 2 hours to go from downtown to our suburb.  We did it once.  With all of the tired, exhausted cranky kids.  The best part is that it isn't the time on the trains that takes so long. That would probably be fine once we go everyone settled into place. It is the fact that to transfer between stations from one line to another, you have to hike about 2 miles winding around and around and up and down.  With kids complaining about how tired they are and very heavy 5 year olds demanding to be picked up and carried. Or sitting down and refusing to go any further.  We do use it to get around while inside the city proper and really have no serious complaints. It cost about 20 cents a person for unlimited transfers.  I think they are more modern than the DC metro.  And somebody has offered Violet a seat pretty much every time we ride.  Thank goodness because otherwise she spends a lot of time pretending to be a cat.  This means you crawl about on the floor of the metro (where you can see pools of spit everywhere) and act like you might lick the legs of other passengers.

We do hope that we can problem solve some other workable solutions. Especially once our car arrives. I'm guessing the solution might be that we will end up utilizing a combination of driving and public transportation.  In the meantime, we get to continue playing the Beijing Taxi Roulette game.  Will one pick us all up, will they take us to the 'burbs, will the seat belts work?!  Stay tuned....

Temple of Heaven and Pearl Market/Toy Market

Alex very bravely went on a boy scout camp out this last weekend (I'll let him describe the experience in his own post) so Violet, Ethan, Chris and I headed downtown.  The Temple of Heaven is a lovely building and very famous architecturally.  The outing involved a lot of walking and it was close to lunchtime when we arrived.  This means impending doom when dealing with a 5 year old. By the time we exited the temple, Violet was starving, grumpy and sick of being photographed.  We had bought her an adorable little bit of a tourist kitsch hat with beads and butterflies.  It looked very cute on her, but unfortunately made her even more of a target for photographers.  Everybody wanted her picture.  At first, she accepted it gracefully, but then decided she had had enough.  Chris and I don't really mind the picture-taking as long as she is into it.  Once she isn't, we told her that it is okay to say no.  She starting hiding her face when people approached and wanted to photograph her.  Unfortunately, hiding your face or crying can make you even more popular.  Like an elusive Cheetah or something. The hunger and crankiness got progressively worse even after we offered up countless Luna bar snacks.  Fortunately, the park surrounding the temple was a fun kid mecca.  There was a playground/exercise area where she could stop a bit and run around.  There were areas filled with ancient trees where you could play hide and seek. It was a fairly nice day by Beijing standards, which meant that the air was just normal bad instead of crazy bad.  The park was filled with elderly gentleman playing cards, people flying kites, exercising, eating and, in short, having a wonderful time.

After the park, we decided to humor the two kids in tow and headed to Pearl Market to dine at, ready for it?  Ta-dum, McDonald's.  Yes, we are a true cliche in China.  And yes, it was just as bad as it is back home.  Then we strolled through the market where you can buy every type of knock-off imaginable. It was the land of the "lady, you want a Rolex" and "lady, I have Louis Vuitton".  One sad fact about all of our family is that we aren't good hagglers.  I don't enjoy it and I don't want to do it. I really like having a price for something and paying that.  I'm clearly not much of a shopper. That approach doesn't work here because the initial price is always clearly something beyond ridiculous.  You know that if you pay it, you are instantly labelled the stupidest tourist pretty much ever. Having people pushing stuff at me constantly also has the added effect of making me disinclined to even stop and look at the stuff.  Behind the market is Toy Market.  4 floors of "made in China" kid heaven filled with scooters, kites, stuffed animals, dolls, beeping electronics and pretty much every other kid item you can think of.  We did buy a couple of things there.  The prices weren't marked up quite as high and the haggling wasn't quite as fierce. 

We were feeling quite brave at that point and pleased with our management of the outing.  So brave that instead of taking a taxi home (not quite the safe, predictable route you might expect, but I'll post about that later), we decided to check out the subway.  Getting back home involved about 17 stops and 3 connections.  We climbed on a subway and quickly realized that there was no way Violet could manage to stand for that entire distance.  She was exhausted and fading quickly.  So we came up with Plan B.  This involved transferring once and riding a few stops to a mall where we could pick up a shuttle bus back to our compound.  Unfortunately, when the door opened for the subway that we needed to get on it was so packed that there was absolutely no way any of us could fit on there.  So, Plan C.  That involved getting out and walking to a large hotel in the area where we managed to hail a cab back home.  Whew!

First day out and about.....

So, after spending our first week safely enclosed in our little expat enclave, we decided to venture out to the big city yesterday. We live about 30- 40 minutes out and we don't have a car yet. That means the city is either a long metro ride or taxi ride away. We also have 5 people in our family, which means 2 taxis (unless the driver is willing to take all of us). Taxis get spendy quick and the drivers tend to not speak much English. The metro is super cheap but I've been warned of long transfer times and huge crowds. After much deliberation, we chose the taxi route. And we tried to get downtown as early as possible since crowds get heavier as the day goes on. We chose to go to HouHai lake in the back lakes area where we could go ice chair skating and check out the hutongs. The hutongs are flat one story courtyard neighborhoods where the people of Beijing have lived for centuries. They are sadly disappearing in the wake of modern life. We have never seen a lake frozen over before so that was exciting in and of itself. We all loved ice chair skating because it involved no actual skill. Perfect for Texans who don't know how to ice skate. The kids only lasted a couple of go-rounds before deciding they were freezing. And Chris got knocked down by some type of ice car. The sky appeared to be the limit as to the clever contraptions you could use to peddle yourself about on the ice. There were bikes and chairs and cars. They also had a bounce house in the ice and a karaoke booth. All in all very festive.
After exiting the ice we headed to a Starbucks -- which had one of the best mochas I've ever had-- to regroup and figure out what is next. We decided to head to the 13th century Drum and Bell towers for a scenic view. We stopped at the Altar of the Fire God en route which was like entering a completely different realm from the carnival-like ice lake. When having a sandwich at the No Excuses cafe we were all surprised to be photographed by passing Chinese tourists as we sat in the glass window.
At this point we were all freezing cold and had had just about enough. We had promised Violet a cotton candy after lunch so we headed down a busy hutong alley in search of one. We also found starfish and scorpion on a stick that the eldest wild one was desperate to try. I refused though because, dear reader, that seems like a great way to get sick. Or at least get a nasty stomach ache. After getting her cotton candy, Violet became the center of quite a bit of attention. At least 15 tourists circled around her and started taking her picture. They were friendly and she didn't seem phased but it was pretty funny. Yet another reminder that we aren't in Kansas anymore:)
Oh. And you will be happy to know that we all survived our first trip to the Chinese toilets!