Fame, Noise and the Power of Toll House

Quick facts about my life:

At any point during any day, I can look out our window and see at least two bright white welding flashes. I try to think of them as friendly fireflies, but can't stare too long. Avert thine eyes, lest ye go blind.

There is a rooster in the area on permanent dawn mode. I am not amused.

There is someone renovating the apartment next door. They are on permanent "sanding mode". Swish, swish. Swish, swish. I am not amused.

I met my biggest fan the other day on the street. I thought she would hyper ventilate, she was so excited. (Not exaggerating.) She practically flipped trying to remember every English phrase she ever learned in school. True to form, she was of course able to summon the #1 most popular question in China: "Do you lika China?"

A man, in total shock at seeing my friend and I on the street, let his grocery bag slip from his hand and drop to the ground, much like his jaw.

The fact that we can now buy cheese and normal butter (i.e. not Chinese butter in that creepy yellow color) at the grocery has made me reconsider my preconceived notion of heaven.

I have the power to stun young children with a single glance. It's like Harry Potter. Stupify!

My new favorite quote about life in Small Town, PRC: "Some days you feel like a rock star and others you feel like a bear on a bicycle." On average, for me, the bear wins out.

I am channeling the frugal souls of the Great Depression, as I scrape every morsel of tuna from the can or save ginger snap crumbs to use as topping for a future serving of ice cream or wash out zip lock bags for another round of snack storage or plan a meal around the need to use up the bread that will be too stale to eat after today. It's strange, but I kind of enjoy it as well.

I appeared in crowd shots for a Chinese television show called the Same Song which just recently aired nationally. Yeah, as in the nation of 1 billion +. Sur-to-the-real.

I wake up to a yelling club (at least that's what we think it is) every morning. Early. I want to find them. I want to smack them.

I no longer notice the crazy fast taxi drivers. I can peacefully text on my phone as the driver darts in and out of traffic, cursing all those in his wake. This both alarms and fascinates me.

I made and ate a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie today. To call it a euphoric experience would be an understatement. In my fervor I shouted to the closed window in my kitchen to the unaware residents below, waving the half eaten disc of buttery bliss in the air: "You see this? Yeah? THIS is what you are missing, my friends! A cookie! With sugar and butter and CHOCOLATE! The Cadillac of Cookies. The Gold Standard. The..." I would have continued if I hadn't devoured the remaining half of my cookie, perhaps chasing it with a second cookie...I think I passed out after this.

I am constantly pondering why all the potatoes in Jining are already slightly squishy in all the supermarkets and almost instantly sprout buds when I get them home. I buy them anyway.

Two months later....

Well, you see, it's like this. China has this thing with the internet, see. They have all this control and they like to block information. From time to time they go a little nuts. Back around March, they blocked YouTube. I didn't realize this would affect me until I found out how much stuff is on YouTube. So it was frustrating, but what are you gonna do? Just go with the flow.

Until....

They blocked Blogger!

Yep, the host of my blog. Could not open my blog or any other blog hosted on Blogger.

Curse you, Communism!!!!

So, if you were wondering if I gave up on this blog thing, the answer is, no. I just couldn't do anything while I was in China. But right now, I am in America! I came home for a visit, so now I can update the blog and figure out how to proceed from here. I have no clue whether they will lift the block on Blogger, so I'm just going to assume they won't. I haven't decided whether to set up email posting or to move the blog to another site or get a proxy server or what. But I'll let you know asap. I go back to China after the 4th of July, so I need to figure it out before then.

Which brings me to the other chunk of news I haven't been able to share until now. David and I have moved to Jining. It's a small city of 3 million in the province of Shandong about halfway between Shanghai and Beijing. David's work wanted him closer. Despite a long, drawn out process of trying to work out a compromise that would allow us to continue living in Shanghai, moving there was our only real option in the end. We're trying to be open and positive about it, but we both know it's going to be a bit tough. At the very least, an adjustment.

I'm thankful we had a year in Shanghai to get acclimated to China a little bit before being thrown into a much more "Chinese" city. There is less English there and people are much more surprised to see foreigners. So that should be interesting. People seem very friendly, a bit like the comparison between Southerners and New Yorkers: city people are just a bit too cool, too "been there, done that, who are you?" and "small town" people are much more open and actually smile when you speak to them. Of course, they also know EVERYTHING about you and your life, but oh well.

I have not blogged about this until now because, well, the situation has been tough, on both of us. It's frustrating to feel like you don't understand what's going on or why certain things seem so much more important to other people. David will now be working most Saturdays, but he'll be coming home earlier on weeknights, so the notion that they are going to be getting more work out of him now is simply poor mathematics on their part. But it seems to be all about face time. When he's there in the office, he's working, but if they can't see him, he must be on vacation. (They refered to his weekends as vacation, crazy workaholics.) Of course, there are few people I know who work harder than David, so it's all just silly. But there you go. Culture clash, to be sure.

So, we moved. I have not seen the new place yet though. We packed up the moving van on a Sunday night and the next morning I boarded the plane for the States. So, watch for a post on my first impressions. Like I said, this will all be very interesting at least.

I had a hard time with this move because my life in China was established in Shanghai. My new friends are there, my writing groups are there, my tutor kids are there. And let's not forget, I can actually get real cheese there. I was also sad to leave our apartment there. It was lovely, with good neighbors and a nice garden. It was my refuge, my oasis in the huge, noisy, dirty city. So, I was sad to leave, but it's okay. It's not the first time I've left an apartment I loved, and I always turn out okay in the end.

In moving to Jining, I have had to think hard about what I will do with my time there. I plan to study Chinese again. I will be needing it much more now. I'm anxious about this, as I am just really bad about learning languages, but it should be a little easier now that I won't be hearing Shanghainese in the mix. I am also planning on working seriously on my novel. I already have a head start and my writing group members are on board to help me with revsions and drafts. No, it's not my memoirs about China. ;) That will have to come later, once I've had time to reflect. So anyway, if anyone asks, I'm a writer. That will now be my job title, because I said so.

I could also get a job teaching English, but I'm not sure about that yet. I would rather teach little kids, just because I think it would be more fun teaching colors and animals than to feel intimidated at the huge portions of the English dictionary that the adults have committed to memory. You wouldn't believe how many English words I have learned in China. Seriously.

So, long story short, my China story is about to shift. Hopefully it will bring a new light on the whole experience. Who knows, maybe I will like it better. All I can do is try it out. But I assure you, I will be looking forward to our monthly trips to the big city to visit friends and speak regular English. Oh, and also to stock up on cheese.

Stay tuned...