Mrs. Wang- an update

Today I arrived fifteen minutes early to pick up Miriam. It was pouring rain outside- which always makes pick up fun on the bike! I was just groaning that I had to stand outside in the rain. That was until I felt an arm around me. It was Mrs. Wang telling me hello and wanting to share my umbrella. I was so thankful to see her!

 Because a whole group of Grandmas were discussing me, my belly, our family ect. I could feel the anger that (again) they will not talk to me about these things. When dear Mrs. Wang put her arm over my shoulder. It was like God was saying- stop being angry and just talk to your friend!

"Raining a lot today" I said
"Yes, and I need an umbrella" Mrs. Wang said

Silence....

"So you don't have to pay a fine then." She said to me followed by,
"Will you find out if it is a boy or a girl?"

"No, will not find out -and some hospitals will not tell you the sex at all they are scared you will not want the baby."
(abortions for the 'wrong' sex of baby are very common here and so most hospitals now have rules banning telling you what sex the baby will be) I replied back to her.

"Having three kids is really unheard of in my hometown (Mrs. Wang is not from Shanghai but a nearby city)" she said.

"But even to have two kids you have to pay 50, 000 Yuan (or almost $8,000). If you have three there is no chance for them to have a Hukou" (this is kind of like a Social Security Number- it allows you to be know as a citizen)

Mrs. Wang has two kids- two boys actually. She did not divulge if she had to pay that fine. But she did tell me people sell their homes sometimes so they can pay this fee.

More silence. More rain. Then the gates open.

Mrs. Wang puts her arm around my very pregnant waist and we walk in together under the same umbrella to Miriam's school. My mind if racing with the simple fact that I could have as many children as I want, in any country I want, anytime I want and probably never sell a house, bribe an official or really sacrifice much. And here stands Mrs. Wang who probably gave up more than I will ever know to have a second son and not abort him. In the silence, in the rain as we walked into school together I felt sad for China- but happy for her friendly arm around me in a very strange place like- China.

Mrs, Wang

Hi blog faithful. Sorry there have not been a lot of posts as of late. Blame me- it is hard to find time!

But something happened this week I wanted to record and you all get to read!

As most of you know Miriam attends a local elementary school. The first year at the school was mostly dealing with peoples comments there that a “foreigner” (and yes, they call that name to your face here) attended their school. Most of first grade I fielded daily questions such as…why are you here?....why did you leave America?....is your husband Chinese?....why don’t you have a car?....ect. It was your basic run of the mill- “what in the world is foreigner doing at our school” kind of line of questioning.

Second grade brought with it silence and much local dialect being said about me while I stood there and watched them talk about me. Most people knew the basics about us, so others would share when I walked up. A few brave Moms (but mostly Grandmas) would translate what they were saying into Chinese (from Shanghaiese) so I could know if the facts about me were true! Most people as we waited for our kids to be let off from school (no school bus you pick the kids up on bikes) just stared, some smiles, some blew smoke in my face ( from the cheap
Chinese cigarettes they smoke) but a few friends started to emerge from the smoke. Mostly Moms who knew I needed (a lot) of help to navigate the waters that is Chinese local School. My good friends consist of : Cindy ,Pear Grandma and Mrs. Wang. Cindy rides the bus one hour each way to take her daughter to and from school. She really cares about her daughter- Megan and really is a great friend to me. Pear Grandma thinks when Miraim is sick she should just eat more pears (well, steamed pears actually- she goes into much detail on how to steam them), she scolds me for giving her peanut butter as a snack and in general is really good at telling me what to do. But she helps with the Shanghaiese into Chinese- which I need a lot. She also has great hair- but that is a side note. Lastly, is Mrs. Wang- who loves to wear short shorts, even in the winter. She is my neighbor and helps me sometimes pick up Miriam when I can not.

This year at school, our third, I tried something new. In China you state the obvious when you meet someone. You do not ask “how are you” but instead:…have you eaten….where are you going/where did you go….you look fat…you look skinny…how much did you pay for your bike….etc. Asking these very direct questions feel like nails on a chalkboard sometimes to me. And so, for grade 1 and grade 2 did not ask these questions to my above named friends. I usually waited for them to ask me, or asked- “recently, how have you been”. Cindy would respond well to that one. I never had to say anything to Pear Grandma- as she was also quick to judge something I was already doing! Mrs. Wang has been a tougher nut to crack. Often she is quiet or in a hurry.

But on Tuesday we walked in together . So I asked her “so, have you been busy lately?” she responded with a kind of strange look (at this point I was thinking maybe I should of gone with the “  you look skinny”) and said “no”. So changing to her son, I asked how he was. She responded with “he is at school” and then in the same breath looked at my fast expanded belly and asked me “so, how much fine will you pay”.

Pause here- in the land of one child policy having more than one kid is a big deal. I get daily DAILY did I mention DAILY lectures about the one child policy from perfect strangers on the elevator, when I buy fruit, when I go out period. In addition you can actually have more than one child here if you pay a fine. This is not a fixed amount. It is determined on who you know in the government, and where you live in China. I have heard most fines are 10,000-100,000 yuan. So a big range!

Back to Mrs. Wang. My heart just dropped when she said this to me about the fines. I guess I thought she would not have to lecture me. Or that, she would even me happy for me? (note- no one I meet at school has said they are happy for me. Or congratulations on the new baby. Most gasp , look in horror and ask why would I do this. When I told Cindy I was pregnant again, she asked if I really wanted to be or not.)

When I said no, we do not pay a fine for more babies. She kind of glared at me and said “yeah, you are from America” and walked away. So then I wonder is she mad that I don’t have to pay a fine? Or what? All week this has made me upset.

But then today when I was talking about it with some good friends who have lived here a long time I was given some insights. Mrs. Wang was just talking to me like she would talk to a friend. Very directly, very honest and with no holds barred. I started to think instead of being hurt by her I instead should be honored she would ask such a direct question.

So, that was my culture/language lesson for the week. Direct communication is hard. Direct communication is even harder when Chinese people do it back at you. And don’t look to them for any kind of validation about your life!

Fun Spring

Spring has finally come to Shanghai! We are thankful!!!
 
Been having a really hard time loading pictures on this blog site.
 
So now trying to email them to the site. We will see if this works!

Third vs. First Tone

I am not a big fan of birthday parties. I am not a big fan of Chinese tones.
Both of these things got me into trouble today.

"Mom, I forgot to stop and buy a gan en kai pian after school!" Miriam said to me in tears as soon as we got home from school today.

"Honey, you know how I feel about going back out once we are back home." I said back (not very nicely to be honest) as we pulled the electric bike into the elevator at our apartment.

"Mommy, I need a gan en kai pian TODAY." Miriam said

So, I dropped her off, and headed back on my electric bike to the small stationary story next to the school.

The whole way there I kept going over in my mind what in the world a gan en kai pian was. I know gan= means to dry and kai pian = a card. So I just assumed it was some type of art supply for a craft she needed to do at home but bring to school the next day.

I parked my bike next to the bookstore and headed inside. The nice lady knew exactly what I needed once I said- I need the gan en kai pian for the third graders. She pointed me to a
collection of greeting cards. And then it hit me, gan third tone, not gan first
tone . Gan third with en= thankful. Gan first= dried. Miriam needs a thank you
card. (which we have A TON of at home!!!).

I asked the nice lady why in the world do the third graders need a thank you note?"

She needs to write you a thank you note for all the work you have done to get her to her tenth
year. Oh, and you need to write her a card for her birthday."

Suddently it all made sense. The tenth birthday party thing. Miriam had told me about this- but I had totally tuned it out as something I did not need to bother with. She had told me that her entire class would be "celebrating" turning ten this next week. Now, you might remember Miriam just turned nine, so why in the world are we thinking about ten? That is because in Shanghai you are born at age one. So really Miriam (and most of her class) are really ten.

So, Miriam will write me a card (in Chinese) telling me about how great a sacrifice I have made
to keep her all these ten years. And then I in turn will write her a card (Miriam says Enlish is fine for me) about how great a girl she is at age ten. And thus, her tenth Birthday will be celebrated.

So, I zoomed home and when I gave her the thank you cards I said to her "Miriam gan en kai pian is a thank you note!"Miriam replied with "Yes, Mom, I knew that!"

More tales from vacation- Burma

A lady I met at the end of our trip said this to me:

" Wow, you spent a lot of time in Thailand you must of seen some animals or gone to the zoo?"
"No," I responded. "We took the kids to Burma".

And we did! We took about an hour drive from the first hotel we stayed at and ended up in Mae Sai, Thailand. Here you are able to pay some money and walk into Burma. So we did that one day.

Above is one of many Buddhist Temples we saw.

Once we crossed the border Joab and I quickly learned there was not much to do for kids! So this nice store took us in. Gave the kids snacks, juice and could speak Chinese so helped us find a driver to drive us to some of the main sites in the town (you can walk into this Burma town but can not leave the town without a visa).

Their very funky green chairs at the computer place.

Us at the border - Asa is not thrilled. Overall, it was not as fun or easy to get to as a zoo. But it was fun to show the kids another country and culture. Joab Meyer loves a good adventure and in the end we all did too.

More tales from vacation- They layover

When you go from winter in Shanghai to summer in Thailand it is hard to dress your family for the plane ride. We dressed in lighter winter clothes and then I packed our summer clothes on the top of one of our suitcases. So that when we landed in Bangkok for our six(!!) hour lay over I would be prepared with new summer clothes and lots of snacks. But here is what happened when we landed...

-We get off the plane- kids start whining as they are too hot. So am I! -We go through immigration- but have the wrong forms so have to re-write the forms before we can go through. -We get through immigration. My kids are now hungry and tired and hot. -We have to rescan our carry on luggage. (not sure why since we just got off an airplane) -All bags scanned but they ask me to open Asa's backpack. At this point I start feeling nervous. As I realize I never looked at what Asa packed in his bag! It kept the kids busy for about two hours picking out what they were going to take that I told them as long as I did not have to carry their bag they could pretty much take whatever they wanted! - The security guy pulls out a pie server from Asa's backpack. I have to bite my lip from laughing! Asa then comes up to the security guy and says he really needs his pie server to dig up treasures while he is in Thailand. The security guy tells me it is "very dangerous" to bring such an item on board an airplane- but he will not take it away from Asa.

After all of that I was really so excited to put some shorts on! However, we did not know that our luggage was checked all the way and we would not see it until we landed in Chiang Rai. So we waited and waited and played in the airport in our winter clothes for six hours.....

The first picture is of a Buddhist monk. They are highly regarded and given VIP treatment in Thailand. Also fun is putting your two year old in a luggage cart and racing around the airport!

Tales of Mr. Kittipot and other stories from vacation

Hello from Northern Thailand! The city of Chiang Rai is where our family has been for the past four days. Today we took the kids on a trip out of town- and what a time it was! It started at a local waterfall- which we did not know took about an hour hike (we all had flip flops on and Joab had Salome on his back) up to see the falls. Here is the steam on the path.



It was so fun to see Asa and Mei so excited when we finally got there!

The spray was so strong we all got covered with mist at the bottom!

From the falls we headed to a local hot springs. I have been looking for a natural hot springs for 16 long years. This is because in college I took with some friends into the mountains of Arizona to look in vain for any natural hot springs to stop at with our little car packed with five girls!
Oh that trip was so fun and so crazy! This trip to the hot springs was a lot calmer- but I
had no idea it would basically be a huge hot tub and that my kids would not really like how hot it was! Joab was a huge sport to help the kids play while I held Salome who put it well when she just said "HOT" every time she went in!


Feeling hot hot hot. And happy that 16 years later I was able to take my three kids to the springs! Love you Laura Lynn, Kori and Laura! These are some of the girls who went on that car adventure so many years ago!

You may be asking how did you get to the falls and springs? And who in the world is Mr. Kittipot? Well this delightful and full of energy man was our driver to these places. We hired him to take us around on his huge motorcycle. Joab had reserved a van for the day but we learned in the morning we could only have Mr. Kittipot (this is what the sign on his bike said and what he answered to when I called out to him above the drone of the bike). This guy likes to party! He liked to play the music loud and drive fast and make us laugh with all the American music he put on. He also liked to stop along the way!

Once we all got situated on his bike (which is not very easy with three kids, a picnic , swimming stuff and a baby backpack) he stops about ten minutes after leaving our hotel at a hospital. I thought perhaps he was getting sick, having a heart attack , or thought we were sick! He parks and then take a plastic bag full of cooked rice and meat from somewhere in the bike and says "five minutes". And he races off to only come back two minutes later to get something else in the bike. We are now really confused when he comes back and zooms off fast until he stops in about five minutes on the side of the road. He turns the bike off and from under his seat takes out a huge water bottle filled with gasoline. He then "fills her up" and we zoom off again. Only to stop in about twenty minutes at a gas station (did we not just do this with whatever was in the water bottle?!). While he tops off the bike he explains that his wife just had a baby and he needed to bring some food to his wife at the hospital! With that we zoom off with music blaring. Another twenty minutes and we stop for some water for him. Our last unscheduled stop with Mr.Kittipot was after the falls hike when we see this sign all in Thai writing with a cement fish in front of a shop. He pulls in, shuts off the bike and says "come". Joab and the kids "come" and he gets some fish food and shows Joab how to feed the fish that live in the nearby river we are passing. Were we suppose to catch fish or just feed them? We are unsure and in the middle of eating our lunch on the bike (while we zoom off to the hot springs).

We enjoyed many laughs, singing old songs and a memorable picnic on the back of Mr.Kittipot's bike today! One of my favorite things in the world is to look over at Joab as we zoom around the mountains of Thailand on the back of Mr. Kittipot's bike ; thinking I love him even more than I did when we first came to visit Thailand over twelve years ago.

Our very hot children at the hot springs next to the bike that got us there!