Shanghai City Zoo

We’ve been in China for about eight months now. That is crazy. It doesn’t feel like eight months, but instead like forever and like no time at all. In other words, it feels relatively settled. I survived, barely, one of the hottest summers on record with almost no air conditioning. I managed to get my own phone number. I know and sort of pronounce the following words:

谢谢 (Xièxiè) – Thank you
你好 (Nǐ hǎo) – Hello
再见 (Zàijiàn) – Goodbye
美式 (Měishì) – Americano
奶茶(Nǎichá) – Milk Tea
煎饼 (Jiānbing) – the ultimate crepe, stuffed with crispy wonton, pickle, greens, hoisin, chilli sauce, and possibly meat. If you visit me I will make you try this. They are made fresh to order while you watch.
月饼 (Yuèbǐng) – mooncake, ie a small pie with a custard, dried fruit/nut, or meat filling.

It’s a pretty small list, I know, but the Chinese tones throw me for a loop every time. I can also recognize various characters that I only know the English meaning of so my reading comprehension is a little higher than my speaking ability. My dad used to tell me that by 6 months in a foreign country you can gain enough of the common tongue for basic fluency. He hadn’t reckoned with Chinese!

One of our favourite things to do in Shanghai is to go to the Shanghai City Zoo. We’ve already been three times. The admission price is very reasonable and the zoo is a giant green park with lots of space for the kids to run and play. There’s even an amusement park, although our attempts to go on a ride “up high” to celebrate Ascension Day were a bit of a bust due to panicking children.

It’s hard to say what the kids’ favourite part is. The usually like to run to the aquarium and reptile area, because they recognize some of the fish from Finding Nemo and enjoy the good creepy thrill of seeing crocodiles and deadly snakes up close. 

Emily really enjoys the monkeys but Walter views them as competition. Last time we took them he very pointedly ignored the monkeys and was heard to say “I can run and climb better than a monkey so I don’t understand why everyone is watching them”. He mostly stumped about, scowling fiercely & swinging a stick. Meanwhile Emily and one of the orangutans shared a special time of bonding of their shared sense of humour, laughing at Emily’s capers. 

The bear area is, of course, one family favourite. The zoo has pandas and both children adore them, although I prefer the smaller red pandas to the giant ones. When we feel homesick we cheer up with a peep at the Grizzly, brown, and black bears. The bears stay true to insolent form and we always get a laugh from seeing their blatant disregard for good public manners, although it does sadden me to see these great beasts penned up. Funny that I do not share the same sentiments for the lions and tigers…I suppose it is a reaction to what you’ve seen free and wild.

We always pack a picnic lunch as there are tonnes of nooks & crannies in which to sit down and eat, either by various animals or just overlooking some of the water features or meadows. There is even a bit of a goat farm where you can feed veggies to the goats or play on the playground – a great space to get the wiggles out prior to the long trip back home. And, of course, no visit to the zoo is considered successful unless the small ones get an ice cream.

Remembering the Dead & Dying

Death is on my mind a lot this November. A friend’s mom just died. An acquaintance’s mum just died. Each night we say a prayer for the dead as part of our November devotions. And aside from these more immediate reminders of mortality and loss there is the ever present background hum of my aunt and my Gramma, both in care homes and both ever so slowly slipping away. There is also the myriad of friends and relatives in varying stages of illness and disease.

To live abroad is to relinquish most claims of control over the lives of those we love. To live abroad is to grieve each goodbye. 

When the phone rings, which is almost always unexpectedly, there is that fateful pause of knowing it must be bad news, because no one pays long distance fees in this age of Skype just to say hi. My mum and I used to comfort ourselves with how quickly I could get home in an emergency. But now? From Europe or China – 24-48 hours if I’m lucky…and I have seen times where it has been unlucky and where friends have scrambled and schemed and despite their best efforts arrived home much too late.

When friends and family are grieving or in the midst of serious illness there is almost nothing that you can do. You cannot help in any tangible way. You cannot bring food or do laundry or watch children. You cannot even keep watch with them by day, because there is that pesky time difference. You can, of course, pray and send notes of encouragement and hope, but you know that no matter how much those are good things to do they do not really take away the grinding strain of trying to survive the present pain. No matter how much your heart yearns to be there, just to sit and be present, you cannot.

It is isolating to grieve alone, or mostly alone. We’ve lost aunts & uncles while living away from home and there is a strange emptiness with no real closure. You can only grieve so much with family over the phone or via email. Chances are you can’t go to the funeral. No one around you will know whom you’re grieving and as sympathetic as friends are it’s not quite the same as spending those hours with the people who shared your love.

This year as part of our liturgical exercises we started a Book of Remembrance. On nights when we can, we sit down and pick the name of someone who has died. We talk about the person, sharing stories and saying prayers, and I record the best of this in our book along with the person’s name and dates. This has been a beautiful way to keep memory alive and to bring the children into an understanding of the Communion of Saints and our belief that gone from this earth does not mean gone forever. While it has been difficult to focus so much on death this month, so long and dreary and so full of loss, it has been like a candle putting one small light into the darkness.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;

Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies;

Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

Kindergarten: 5 Weeks In

The children have been in Chinese Kindergarten for a month now. Schooling has, of course, been a hot topic under our roof, and really this should be no surprise. If my reading of literature and biography has taught me anything it’s that how, when, and where to school your children has been a subject of discussion and worrying for centuries. I find some comfort in adding my woes to the sum total of human experience.

 

First day of school. It's 6am or something ridiculous like that. 

The initial going was hardest on little Emily. She has had a hard year, having gone from having her daddy at home with her every day to having that same daddy working the long hours that come with Academic territory. And, since our flat is of modest size, it is generally best for all of us if most of those long hours take place at his office. It’s not far away but it’s not at home and for Annie that makes all the difference. To then find that she is no longer to be at home every day with the security of Mama and brother was a cold dose. But she has now made friends at school, English-speaking friends, and she occasionally has a recess with Walter, and she generally basks in a warm glow of knowing that her teachers find her smart and adorable and her friends find her kind and fun. 

Recess

September homework assignment: build a house

With Walter it is harder to tell. He tends to be a bit of a loner by choice, preferring only the company of those who can come up with better games than his own or those who are willing to fall under his instruction. He tends to be frustrated with any interference in his plans and his main complaint is that the other children won’t leave him or his setups alone. He doesn’t mind going to school and he has been learning to write numbers, letters, and characters, but it is hard to say if he enjoys it or if he just does it as his duty, a box to tick off before he can go home and get back to the real business of infrastructure, engineering, and dinosaur battles. I do know that he heartily enjoys the sports days, for he is stronger and faster than most, if not all, of the kids in his class and he loves to run and to win. So while he may have his focus mostly on his own projects, rather than what his peers are doing, it seems that his natural athletic talent will help him from becoming too isolated as he tends to be in demand for sporty things. 

One of Walter's at-school projects in the lead up to National Day/Golden Week

September homework assignment: make a traditional Chinese opera mask

School is doing what we’d hoped – teaching the children practical skills like buttoning buttons and putting on socks, giving them a taste of independent interaction, and letting them have a safe space to learn how to listen to authority. Their little brains are soaking in Chinese, even if they don’t realize it, which was one of our goals in enrolling them at the Chinese Kindergarten rather than an international one. Our family interests of art, music, and literature are covered off in our usual way, by going on outings and talking with the children. In our spare time at home we are teaching them to read and write English, and by helping them with their little homework assignments I am learning a wee bit of Chinese.