Where to start? I suppose I stopped blogging once I left Canada with the intention of starting back up again once we got to China. I don’t know why I didn’t start again right away. I suppose everything felt so temporary because we weren’t in our permanent apartment; just a small one-bedroom that felt like a hotel room. Our shipment hadn’t arrived so it still felt like a vacation, in a sense. Now we’re in our permanent place, our shipments are here and unpacked and it feels more like ‘home’. And apart from the drama with our movers (sending us things we didn’t want and not sending us the things we asked them to), and the renters (who have so far asked that we replace the furnace, the air conditioning unit and the fridge), everything is going pretty well.
I say pretty well because some days are amazing (like when we took a hike along the Great Wall or when we discover a fabulous new restaurant that served up steaming noodles for only dollars a bowl) and some days are not good. Some days the only thing I accomplish is getting dressed and going out to pick up milk (imported because I’m not sure if the milk here is melamine-free yet).
Not having a job and being a ’spouse’ is taking more getting used to than I thought it would. I’m constantly being referred to as ’spouse’ or ‘wife’ because the Chinese are too polite to call me anything else. I’m introduced as ‘the spouse’ of so-and-so. At first it didn’t bother me so much, but now it grates on my nerves. Everyone asks me if I have children and when I say no, they look at me with this look that says, ‘Well what on earth do you DO all day?’ I think having children would make this an easier transition because all the moms have play dates and coffee dates and it’s like this immediate social circle that you can just join.
And what do I do all day? Well, now that we have a maid, I don’t do any cleaning. I go to the market and get fruits and vegetables. Sometimes I go out to Starbucks because I need some home comforts (even though it’s ridiculously expensive here).
I have Mandarin classes two mornings a week. That sounds like so little when I’m not really doing anything else, doesn’t it?. I had all the best intentions in the world before I got here of taking full-time lessons; but let me tell you, learning Mandarin is kind of like someone grinding your brain to a pulp and then making you feel stupid for it. It’s HARD. I tried one week of full-time lessons and then I gave up. So now it’s two mornings a week with a pleasant teacher who comes to the apartment. I know I should make the effort to go to the school to take these lessons, it would get me out of the house, after all. But the bus stop and schedule is well… it’s in Chinese and I can’t read it.
Which brings up another difficulty; the language. I understand so little of it, and they speak so little English that it makes it really frightning to wander too far away from the area that we live in (a foreign/diplomatic enclave where I hear more French than anything else). I know I need to get over this eventually; but sometimes it’s easier to stay in my bubble, with my foreign goods shop down the road that sells Cambozola cheese and Kraft products.
And there are some days that I wonder if I made the right decision coming here and when I feel incredibly low. But then BF comes home from work and I see his smile, and these doubts go away immediately, it’s just when I’m left to think about things all day I tend to work myself up into a frenzy.
It’s also taken me a while to get used to the pollution here. A brisk walk outside will tire me out and make me feel crappy, I’m sick more often than I was back home and the dryness of the air here is cracking my skin so I’m constantly applying loads of cream and have to have a humidifier next to my face at night otherwise I wake up parched. Although, I’m sure eventually I won’t even notice it.
I need to find things to do and get the motivation to do them. This is my challenge right now. Right now I’m detoxing. I’m going on this magical leek soup diet for the next two days (where I eat only leek soup). It’s supposed to get rid of water retention. It sounds ridiculous, but BF is away on a business trip for the next two days, and hey, it’s not like I’m doing anything else, right?
3 Comments
November 4, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I don’t know if this post reassures me or not. Not I think. It sounds like you still have a lot of settling in to do. BUT at least that is happening. I guess it’s all about filling your time. *hugs*
November 5, 2008 at 5:17 am
How long are you posted over there for?
I cannot imagine how difficult the language is to learn, at least with the non symbol ones you can usually pick out some of the key words.
November 5, 2008 at 9:30 am
tenderhooligan – Fill my time with what? Kniting? Sewing? Painting?
Perpetual – It’s a three year posting, so I’ll learn Mandarin eventually. It just takes time. BF was in Mandarin lessons full-time for two years before coming out here so he’s pretty advanced.