China Chronicles 2

Hello Friends & Family-

Thought I would give you an update on the new happenings over in the Eastern part of the world.  We have moved into our apartment as I may have mentioned...?  Of course we don't have a lot of stuff in here yet, but it makes it easy to clean.  Even 19 suitcases doesn't do much to fill up a big house.  Aside from keeping a very minimalist home, we are enjoying settling in.

 

So, some first impressions after being a part of real life for a week or so... 

1. Chinese people are quite tall, especially compared with Japanese.  I remember always feeling like the biggest women in most any room, (in all ways) when living in Japan.  Here I am on the tall side of average, but there are many tallish Chinese women, and most of the men seem to be nearly American averages of height- more on the 5'9"-5'11" range.  It is interesting. The women are bustier too.  I might even be able to buy a bra here which I never could do in Japan even though I am not overly well-endowed compared to American women.

2. Chinese people have an interesting sense of fashion.  Many people don't seem to care if their clothes match (in a Western sense.)  They might wear stripes on top and a different colored patterned piece on the bottom, which to me looks really funny, like an adult dressed as my 3 year old who chose her own outfit.  Of course this is not everyone, but it happens several times a day that I pass by someone and think, "that is sure an interesting choice..." 

3. Funny English is everywhere.  After a 10 year hiatus, we are back in the land of "English is cool, even if it doesn't make sense."  I have laughed out-loud several times seeing things over the last week.  One of my favorites was a nice beauty salon offering underarm waxing, only the large sign out front succinctly advertised it as "UNHAIRING OF ARMPITS" which struck me as extremely comical.   A T-shirt I saw in the store proclaimed:  "A-1 Radio Show: Our music is always phoffesounul style."  ha ha.  What a funny word to misprint (if you didn't figure it out, it was supposed to be professional.)  And last but not least menu items at restaurants.  They haven't quite gotten the knack of making the food sound remotely appetizing in English when they translate their menus.  At least most ARE translated, which is nice, and better than what we got in Japan.  But it is still funny to order something called Black Fungus and Sole ( a mushroom and fish dish), or another "tasty" looking morsel that said "Pig Knuckle, Dried Jellyfish and Chicken Feet."  Of  course that one was just gross, and any way you translate it I don't think I would have been tempted.

 

4. Our apartment complex is HUGE and I mean HUGE.  There are probably at least 40 skyscrapers of about 30 floors each clustered over a 1.5 mile square radius or so.  Maybe more, I am not sure.  We have been doing some exploring and discovering of the different facilities.  One thing that is striking right now is the noise of cicadas all over the grounds.  If you have never heard one they are unbelievably loud.  You walk along the sidewalks which are lined with trees and hear a sound like 1,000 maracas shaking simultaneously, then suddenly by some unspoken cue, they all go quiet within a few seconds of each other.  Kind of spooky.  The other day I was in my front-room, which is about 25 feet from the (closed) front door.  My front door opens to the 8th floor of my building where there is a little lobby area in front of the elevator.  There are also 2 windows in there that open to the outside.  Anyway, from inside my apartment  I heard some loud noise that sounded like a mechanical clattering.  I couldn't figure out from where it was coming and finally followed it toward the front door.  When I opened it, I saw ONE cicada another 15 feet to the right beating against the window trying to get out.  It was sooooo loud I had heard it from inside my door about 35-40 feet away.  Crazy.  My cousin Matt said that they will only be around another month or so and then they all die and litter the ground.  Can't wait till that happens.  I remember that from Japan and it was gross when that happened.  Cicadas are brown, ugly and big, about 2 inches long by 3/4 inch fat.  They also fly which freaks you out.  I don't think I will particularly miss them, but the noise is interesting.

 

5.  Living in Shanghai is like living in Manhattan, except practically everything is newly built here.  But truly it feels like New York in a lot of ways.  I hardly feel like I am in Asia unless I stop and see signs which of course are in Chinese.  It mostly just feels like a big, modern, clean city, with wide streets, good signage and remarkably pretty landscaping along the big avenues.   Albert is amazed at the amount of buildings and infrastructure they have set up on this side of the city (the Pudong side).  When we were here 12 years ago Pudong was mostly rice fields.  There were a handful of skyscrapers already built, but everywhere you looked there was construction. The tour guides were telling us about all the buildings that were going up. Albert remembered the guides mentioned that HALF of the world's construction cranes were at that moment in Shanghai being utilized for building.  Isn't that amazing?  It is easy to believe that was actually true since we see the results of that labor just 12 years later.

 

Okay, well those are my top five that I can think of right now.  I have another story I need to tell so you can all laugh.  Luckily I can laugh at it now too although at the time it seemed far from funny.

 

The other day Albert and I were supposed to go to the Police Station to do some kind of local registering.  They asked us to come together with the 7 passports and do an interview and sign sone papers.  Albert set up an appointment for 3:00, and I planned to leave my apartment at 2:15, go pick him up, and then we would drive over to the station together.  Well, I came downstairs to meet the driver at 2:15 and he was not there.  They had asked us specifically to be on time, and I was worried about making the deadline, so I thought I would start walking out of the parking structure and meet the driver on the way in to save time.  There is only ONE entrance to our building that the Transit van can fit in, so I was confident that I would pass him on the way, and hopefully save 5 minutes.  (There are a lot of speedbumps in the parking garage, and it is so big under there that it generally takes 5 minutes to get to our building from the parking entrance since we have to slow down for all the speedbumps.) 

 

 I began walking.  About 2:20, I got to the top of the parking area.  I had not passed the driver.  I continued walking and waited right by the front entry gate where he always enters.  He had gone to get lunch so I was assuming he was just running a little late.  By 2:25 I still had not seen him, so I called his cell phone.  He answered hurriedly and I said his name with a question mark: "Xiao Chun?"  He said "2 minutes!"  That was the extent of the conversation and also the limit of our abilities to communicate.  Well, two minutes came and went and I never saw him drive by.  By 2:30 I was worried.  I called Albert.  "I still haven't left- Xiao is late," I said.  Albert wanted to know where he was but I had no idea.  I told him where I was waiting and asked if someone from his office could call the driver and tell him where I was.  But then I couldn't even explain to ALBERT where I was.  I said "I am at the entrance where the coffee shop is, near the parking entrance."  And Albert said: "By the supermarket?"   "No, I am by the coffee shop, where he always takes me."  Albert said: "Well, he always takes me by the supermarket."  Hmmmmmmph.  "Okay, well, it is getting a little late, so how about you take a cab to the police station, and we can just meet there and still be on time."  So, he gives me the address and we try to work that out for a while.  He calls around trying to find someone who speaks Chinese to communicate with our driver.  Finally he calls me back and says he was able to get the appointment delayed until 3:30.  He says someone talked to Xiao and that he said  had been waiting for me at our builiding parking space for 40 minutes. Impossible, but whatever.

 

I didn't want to have to walk all the way back down there just to come up again but I didn't know of a better way to explain where I was, so I agreed to walk back down and find Xiao.  By this time is was about 2:45.  I head back downstairs.  The parking area is the same size as the entire complex- by that I mean betwen 1-2 square miles.  Although there are SOME numbers on the parking structure signs, everything else is in Chinese.  There are 3 Phases in our complex, 1,2 and 3, each containing over twenty buildings.  Each phase repeats the same numbers, so if you see a number and an arrow, you can't necessarily assume that it is the same PHASE that you live in since we can't read the Chinese. 

 

Anyway, I thought I walked in the same way I walked out.  I found a sign that said "15-19" and followed that direction.  Nothing looked familiar. Also, about this time, I realized that I REALLY needed to pee.  I had had to go before I left  (at 2:15) but I was in a hurry and thinking that I would be at the police station by 3, and could go then.  So, now it was about 5 to 3, and I was feeling pretty stretched...  I arrived at building 17 only to find that it was not MY building 17.  I started to panic as I looked around and realized I had no idea where my building was and no idea where to go to even find it.  I started to look for signs to GET out of that parking garage.  I felt like I had been wandering down there in the grim light for hours although it had really only been about 15 minutes.  I still didn't know where to go, and was worried about making the dumb appointment on time.  Finally, at like three oclock I called Albert back.  He asked where I was. (Grumble, grumble.) "I am at building 17", I said, "but it is not the right one."   After some back and forth of suggestions I lost my temper.  "Cancel the dumb appointment" I said.  "I am LOST down here and have no idea how to get out."  Albert was kind enough to apologize after a bit of a laughing spell and said he would change it till tomorrow.  I hung up and settled down to the task of escape from parking lot hell.  I began walking in a likely looking direction and saw a picture of a person walking up stairs next to a doorway.  I was excited about that, and thought it would lead me up to the top where I could then find the club-house and orient myself to get home.  However, when I went to door, I still had to use my pass-card to get through one of the doors.  Because I did not live in that building it would not let me through (the cards are like electronic keys and it was obviously a security measure.)  In any case I was unable to get out to the stairs.  I saw a few more signs like that and they were all the same system.  So, no luck.

 

By this time it was about 3:15.  I had been outside waiting in the sun, or wandering around in the gloom for an hour.  I was hot, sweaty, thirsty and had to pee like the dickens.  I started to glance around the parking structure, looking for a bathroom, but there was nothing.  Consequently I began to look for any likely spot where I might be able to pee, having no idea when I was gonna get out of there.  I felt like Kramer and George in that Seinfeld episode where they lose their car in the mall garage and are wandering around forever.  Finally they both decide to pee in the structure and Kramer is fine but George gets caught.  It was funny, but here I was actually living that.  I finally found a corner where an SUV type vehicle was parked.  It was dark and private and I creeped back there and totally peed in some drain back there.  Gross.  I felt like I was a potty-training Chinese child.  They don't really use diapers here and let their kids pretty much pee at will.  Their pants often have a big cut out in the center where the crotch is and their little buns hang out when they move the right way.  Just a side note there.  So, ANYWAY, however you look at it, I was just so relieved that I didn't even care anymore.  I had an empty bladder, the appointment was cancelled and I figured I couldn't stay in parking hell forever.  I started walking again and praying for a way out.  I had probably already been doing that, but I did it again.  At about 3:30 or so I see another kind of exit sign that has stairs.  I check it out and HALLELUJAH- it actually goes up to the bright world above!  I have never been so glad to breathe in a lungful of smog before.  I blinked against the light and took a look around to get my bearings.  Low and behold the club-house was right to my left and my builidng was right in front of me.  Thank heavens for tender mercies. After a thank-you prayer I stole into the house and breathed a sigh of relief when the air-conditioning hit.  I had to go lay down in my room and recover by reading a mindless detective thriller for an hour before I could really speak to anyone.  After that I was able to slightly see the humor in it.  I hope you all get a good kick out of it as well.

 

By the way, a typhoon just barely missed Shanghai.  There was a government warning and the levels were at the highest alert.  We thought they might cancel church but they didn't.  I gave a lesson in R.S. (the Pres. asked me to sub last week after I offered to teach when she needed help.)  Anyway, during my lesson I accidentally said something wrong to a Chinese sister who grabbed her bags and ran out of the room (literally)after snapping at me.  It was totally bizarre and I had several people tell me she had some issues and I had just walked into a history of which I was unaware.  Whatever the case, it was VERY awkward, and I had to continue giving the lesson afterwards feeling like an idiot.  I had lots of sisters tell me afterwards not to worry about it, and I had said nothing wrong, but it was very unfortunate to be in the ward two weeks and already have caused a drama.  Albert just shook his head, and laughed.  I don't know why I seem to be able to cause controversy wherever I go.  It made me miss all of my friends that know me... boo hoo.  However, I am sure it will blow over.  I sent an email apologizing (not sure for what) to the gal and hope things will be fine.  She is moving back to the States anyway.   Sigh.  On the bright side, we have a dinner appointment with someone in an hour and a half so hopefully we will get better acquainted with some of the more reasonable ward members.  I miss all of you.  Love, Teeny-Bladder & Crew

Tiffany & Albert Allred

China Chronicles 1

Dear Friends & Family:

 

So, here is the first installment of the China Chronicles.  Read on if you dare...

 

We got here about 9 Wednesday evening and amazingly received all 19 pieces of our luggage.  Yes, I said 19.  We had 5 of those luggage carts filled to the rim and required 2 large transit vans to get all of our luggage and our family to the hotel.  It was quite a circus, and amazingly (or maybe not?) the customs officials chose not to go through our bags.  Albert was bemused by this since China is so strict on contraband.  We could have set up a Macy's with all the stuff we had in our suitcases.  Anyhoo...we have a nice 3 bedroom hotel suite at the Marriott while we are waiting for our apartment to be ready on August 1st.  The first night we finally got to bed around eleven.  I had only slept about an hour or two on the plane so I was totally tired and looking forward to sleeping all night.  So of course Sofia got up 2 times and then finally was up for good at 4:30 am.  Alicia also woke up vomiting at about 2:30am.  Luckily she didn't barf again till the next morning but it was still a pretty horrid first night. Jet lag alone as an adult is bad enough.  Jet lag with kids multiplies everything by ten.  Ugh.  Another day with just a couple hours of sleep.   

 

The views from the hotel are gorgeous.  We are on the 35th floor with vistas of the skyrises all around plus lots of neat and compact living quarters.  A river flows through that is filled with boats of all kinds.  The only thing that mars the view is the haze of smog, but we can't have everything, can we?  The only other thing about which I can complain is the water.  Oh man, it is literally the grossest water I have ever tasted.  It is not really made for drinking, but even having to rinse your mouth out with it when you brush your teeth is brutal.  It tastes completely like dirt; a really rich brown soil that you imagine would be divine for plants but not as a water condiment.  It even smells like dirt, even when you are just showering.  We will have to drink bottled water here and so far I am pretty low on my regular water intake.  It is inconvenient to always have bottled water but I will get used to it again.  We had the same thing in Mexico City but it wasn't nearly as bad tasting.  I used to drink little bits of that water and it never bothered me even though Albert thought I was crazy for doing it.  Here I don't think I will ever be tempted.  I thought that Franklin's metallic tasting well water was bad in Michigan but this is ten times worse.

 

Anyway, in the morning the kids and I went over to the apartment to show them the complex and stuff.  Albert stayed home with Alicia who was still really miserable.  It was REALLY humid and hot outside and I blessed the person who designed air conditioning several times in my head.  The kids liked the complex although Braxton was bemoaning the fact that it was not a house with a yard, etc. but at least he liked the basketball court and the weight room. The apartment looked nice although it was dusty and dirty; I don't think it had been showed or cleaned since we agreed to rent it in April.  We went for lunch and then went next door to check out the big French grocery store, Carrefour.  I needed to buy a few things to have in the apartment which has a kitchenette and washer/dryer.  The place is HUGE, like one of the SuperWalmarts, with probably about the same quality of products, which is to say on the cheap side.  I am more of a Target girl, myself.  It is always odd to be thrown back into the non-literate world.  You look around and everything looks strange and distinctly un-food-like. It seemed to me like everything was noodles or condiment sauces.  We had been there for about 20 minutes and I was about halfway through my trip.  I had found some laundry detergent which looked like Tide, so I thought it was safe.  Whether or not it had bleach I don't know- I will find out when and if I ruin my colored clothes. I also had some snacks: Koala cookies and Pocky, which I was familiar with from Japan, and some Seaweed flavored Pringles, just for fun.  They were a bright green color.  I got a few other things and then was heading over to the fresh fruits and vegetables.  Unfortunately for me, on the way we passed a living zoo of eating possibilities.  The boys were clustered around a display of desperate looking turtles and GIANT toads, all stuffed in cages and waiting to be chosen.  Honestly I thought it was pretty interesting in a creepy kind of way but then the smell hit me.  I was just beginning to process it and think about moving away when Sofia says (while she is sitting in the cart): "Mom, it smells really bad!"  Literally two seconds later she chunkily vomits the large bowl of Spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread she just consumed.  I start screaming and running, abandoning a pile of pink vomit to some poor soul to clean up.  I try to imagine where a bathroom is.  The boys scatter, shrieking and laughing with embarrassment.  I am panicked that she is going to continue, but when we get out of the "bad smell" area she is totally fine.  Of course, she has vomit all over her arm and skirt with some on her shirt as well.  I have NO IDEA where the napkins or paper towels are in the gargantuan store, or how I would explain that I needed to open them before I purchased them, neither do I have any wipes.  I also don't know where the bathroom is, let along how to ASK where it is, (that hadn't come up in any lessons yet).  I am pretty much stumped.  I grab a plastic grocery bag and wipe off her arm and shirt as best I can.  I find the boys and we head to the registers.  I ignore any looks from interested bystanders.  We check out with only minor bumps when I realize that there are no grocery bags- I have to buy some of the reuasable bags near the front.  When we get outside to our van, I strip Sofia's skirt off and leave her in her underwear, putting her skirt in another plastic grocery bag.  Our driver watches curiously although I don't even try to offer an explanation.  I will certainly not be taking Sofia to the grocery store for a while....

 

We went home for a bit to see if Alicia was feeling better.  She was, and so we all headed over to my cousin Matt's house who happens to live here in Shanghai.  Go figure that I have to move to the other side of the world to live close to family.  We went over to his apartment and met his gorgeous exotic Brazilian wife Jucinete (nick-named Juci) and her son Eric, who is Chandler's age and only speaks Spanish (how lucky is that!)  We had a great afternoon enjoying Brazilian beans with beef and several side dishes she had made.  The good thing about the dinner was that it forced us all to stay awake later than we would have been able to do had we been home.  We left about 8, and it took us thirty minutes to drive home.  When we got to the hotel, all seven of us had fallen asleep.  ha!  Luckily we had the driver getting us where we needed to go, but it was pretty funny when we arrived at our hotel and I looked back and every single person in the family was dead asleep.  It was a chore getting us up to our rooms.  Of course Sofia stayed asleep and was transferred to her bed.  The rest of us also went to sleep as soon as possible.  Alicia woke us up vomiting again sometime around midnight; I was too miserable to look at the clock.  Then Sofia woke up for good at 3:30am.  Worse than the night before.  After several attempts to get her to go back to sleep I gave up and put on a movie for her then read for a while.  Just when I was getting horribly sleepy again around 5:45 she was done with her movie again and ready for breakfast.  Alicia was awake by then too, so I gave them both a bath to stall until 6:30am when the buffet opened.  All of the boys got up somewhere around that time as well and we were all down there breakfasting before 6:45.  Albert stayed in bed for a while since he had gotten up with Sofia the day before and actually had to go to work, poor guy.

 

Since Albert had to work I was left to my own devices for that day.  I called the chaffeur and he picked us up at 10 to take us to the Shanghai Aquarium.  It was there that I had my first Chinese fight.  In the country for only 2 days and already people are ticking me off.  I waited in line to buy tickets (outside in the sun, when it was already like 90).  The tickets were pretty expensive.  About 22 dollars for anyone about 2nd grade or higher (they do it by height, which always ticks me off because it is a quiet prejudice against foreign children, who are generally taller than Asians).  First irriation.  When I figured out the cost for my family, I calculated it was going to be about $165 to get in.  Then I noticed that they had an annual family pass for almost the same price.  Oh, cool, I thought.  So I got to the front and asked for the pass, only to be told that I had to go inside to get the annual pass.  Second irritation.  Okay, so deep breath and we go inside with all the family.  I go find the window inside and ask the girl for an annual family pass.  She gives me a form to fill out.  It has space for 3 names, two parents and one child.  Of course it does...we live in CHINA, where EVERYONE has one child. No wonder the family annual price looked pretty good to me.  So, then I start reading the fine print.  As I metioned, it says that the family pass is only for the three people; if you happen to have more than one, you can pay an additional $25 PER child.  All of the sudden the $165 annual family pass isn't looking quite as good.  Thus, my third irritation.  I tell the girl we have 5 children and ask how much that would be.  She looks incredulous and looks out the window to make sure I am not lying, or trying to pass off someone else's children as my own.  Of course, LOOKING at my children when Albert is not here would probably convince her that we were certainly cheating...Sigh.  She seems to be frozen into paralysis, so I do some more calucations in my head and figure it is still probably worth doing the family pass even if I have to pay an extra HUNDRED bucks for the other four kids.  It would pay for itself if we went ONE other time during the next year.  So, I tell her I still want to do that.  She shows me the spot at the bottom where I put the extra children's names.  However, there are only two extra spaces.  I mention this to her and she gets confused and goes to find someone who speaks some English.  After a few more minutes a youngish guy comes out and repeat everything that I have just already read.  I wait patiently.  Then he explains to me that company policy is only to allow the addition of two extra children to the family pass for a total of 3 possible children.  Fourth irritation; my blood pressure begins to rise noticeably.  I look at him blankly, and tilt my head, with eyebrows raised. "So..... what do I do if I have FIVE?"  He looks confused and studies the form conscientously for some time.  All of this time the girls are twirling about my legs and whining about when we are are going to go in, which is understandable since it had been about 30 minutes so far but it only adds to my stress.  He finally looks up brightly: "Well, you could buy a FAMILY Pass, then pay for TWO additional children (at $25 each), then pay for TWO EXTRA individual yearly passes (at about $55 each) to cover your family.  I give him a dubious look.  "Are you kidding me?"  I exclaim.  "That is ridiculous! Why can't I just pay the extra $25 to add the four kids?  You are still getting quite an extra fee, and I can just write their names below even though their is no line for them."  "That is not company policy," he replies.  I give him my best withering look (and I can do some good ones.)  "So, I am basically being punished for having five children?  I realize that you are not able to have more than one HERE" I say, "but I am not FROM here.  I just arrived yesterday and this is how I am greeted?  My first day in China and I can't even purchase a family pass?"  Boy was I ticked off.  To make a long story short, this went back and forth with absolutely no change on his part.  I wanted to strangle his calm, irritating, inflexible neck!  I came within a hair-breath of ripping up the form in front of his face and walking out.  Then I reconsidered, thought about the humidity outside, the fact that we really had nothing else to do, and decided to chalk it up to costs of living overseas and cultural differences.  I took a deep breath and ended up buying a "Family" pass with ONE child (Alicia) and then adding Sofia as an additional child ($25) and then paying for 3 individiual day passes, figuring that the boys would honestly probably be in school when I came back with the girls anyway.  What a fiasco! 

 

The aquarium was OKAY, but since I was in such a bad mood it took a while for me to even be able to appreciate anything.  The best parts were the jellyfish display, which was huge and had the black lights which change color and illuminated the drifting, translucent jellyfish with muted colors.  Love that.  The next coolest thing was a 155 meter tunnel of connecting aquariums with different habitats and fish species all kind of connected.  Very cool.  The third best thing was watching Sofia in all her glory being a mini-celebrity.  I think she had about 15 people stop to take her picture, or take a picture WITH her, or with their children.  She very obligingly smiled, posed and even did ballet for them.  Pure Sofia.  I am sure she will eventually get tired of it, but not on the first day.  The boys were kind of freaked out by it, and I told them it had been exactly the same with them in Japan.  Alicia was less willing to be photographed now that she is older.   Anyway, by the end of the trip I was feeling fine and thinking that at least it would make a good story.  Hope you enjoyed reading it more than I enjoyed experiencing it!

 

Well, this is getting LONG and I am sure all of your have better things to do, but I miss you all already and can't wait for visitors.  I hope you will still want to come after reading this! ha ha.  Hugs, Tiffany & Crew