These last few weeks have flown by in a frenzy of activity--preparing for my sister and her family's arrival to China, meeting with our regular groups of friends here, and now enjoying a week off (for the kids at least!) for Spring Break! We've finally had our heat turn off (it was supposed to go off throughout the country on March 15, but the government agreed to extend it an extra five days due to the fact that a cold front came through, leaving several inches of snow still on the ground well past the March 15th planned cut off date. While we've enjoyed a day or two of weather that has gotten into the 60's, it can still be categorized here as "cold"! As I type, I have on my wool socks, house shoes, long underwear bottoms and jeans, and two layers of shirts on top. So while there are some buds on the trees and a few blossoms even beginning to appear, I'm not so sure that spring has truly arrived in Tianjin! We're hoping that (if the forecast is correct) our next week should be continually warming up, leaving us with weather nice enough to go outside and enjoy seeing some green beginning to pop up and even the tarps being taken down that they put up throughout the winter to protect any sort of natural landscaping from the cold and wind. Tianjin is known to be the city of roses, so in another month or two we should even start seeing some flowers bloom around town! So much to look forward to....
Over the past 2 weeks we've had quite a few humorous cultural differences pop up again--which is nothing new, but thought some of you might get a kick out of laughing along with us at some of the more obvious differences (and our usually awkward moments that surround them). So here's a brief overview of some of them:
- A few weeks ago I hosted a group of moms who were listening to a speaker about parenting according to the Book. While the group of ladies were at my house, one of them got a phone call from her mother-in-law stating that her father-in-law was currently in an ambulance en route to the hospital, and they needed her to meet them there immediately. While our Chinese friend hurriedly gathered her things together, her two close friends sitting next to her close enough to overhear the entire conversation leaned to me to whisper what was going on, explain why she needed to leave, and add that she needed a lot of money. Now this was all going on in Chinese, and I was a little confused by the money part, so I clarified with the girls' friends--"She needs money?" Their response--"Yes!" My next question--"So I should give her money?" Again--"Yes!" I found out a little later that she needed to take money to pay for the ambulance. The mystery still remains however as to why everyone in the room looked to me to provide the large sum of cash (which I thankful had on-hand as I had literally gone to the ATM to pull cash that morning just in case). When I asked my closest Chinese friends why they girls would all look to me to provide the money, rather than looking in their own wallets themselves, especially since they were much closer friends to the girl in need of money, I assumed the answer would be because I was the hostess of our gathering. Since we were in my house, it would maybe make sense for me to keep a stash of cash on hand? But alas, my closest friends all agree that this was probably NOT the case--that most Chinese people do NOT keep large amounts of money in their house, so I probably wasn't expected to either. So I still have no idea why the money was asked of me, but was thankful that I had it on-hand to provide, and honestly thankful too that the girl made sure to have every bit of it paid back by the following day!
- A funny moment revealed the difference in Western and Eastern thinking in the way of planning for things far in advance. I explained to my teacher one day that I needed to break during our 10 minute break time of class (we do 2 hour long one-on-one classes, but there's a short break in between that my teacher and I often just push on through if we're in the middle of something) because I needed to find another western friend to discuss birthday plans. My teacher, surprised, asked when my friend's birthday was. When I explained that it was April 14 (which at this time, was a good 3 weeks away) and that we were trying to coordinate a combined bday party (mine is May 5)--she looked liked I'd slapped her in the face! She exclaimed, "But your birthdays are still so far away!" I reminded her that we're Americans, so we put things on the calendar sometimes a full month in advance. She walked off to re-fill her hot water bottle chuckling all the way at the thought. (In contrast, we got an invitation just recently from a Chinese friend to her birthday gathering on a Thursday night when the party was Saturday, and she was disappointed that we had plans already made then! So the short-term planning is definitely a norm in the Chinese culture.)
- We received a rare invitation to a Chinese friends' home who only Kevin had met in person. This brave family has 3 kids of their own (I know, not legal here in China, and honestly still not sure how they have managed to get away with it), and invited our entire family of 6 over for dinner. It was quite a cultural experience for us all! As we walked through the entryway of the building, all the kids went from chattering away to completely silent. Finally, when we had wound our way through the hallways to reach the elevators, Hudson let out a breath and said, "Whoa. This is kind of creepy." Kevin and I kind of laughed and continued on. The family we were visiting lived in a 3 bedroom apartment--I'm guessing about 800 sq. ft. total (maybe less?). After meeting with our friends, having dinner (of which the kids barely touched, but handled pretty politely anyway), and letting the kids play awhile, Karis called me into one of the bedrooms to whisper "Are they poor?" I explained to her that they really weren't. That most families in China live in conditions much more difficult than this family did. I said all this while eyeing the mattresses on the floor with no bedframes (and asked myself, "Do we really need bed frames anyway?), while seeing the toys (few in comparison to what my kids think is normal) being stored in cardboard boxes in the kids' room, noticing that most of us were seated on overturned boxes rather than chairs at the small kitchen table that could fit a max of 4 people. It was simplicity like we rarely experience it. And I was so thankful that my kids had the opportunity to see and live it, even if just for a night (although it will hopefully be more frequent than that that we receive invitations into our friends "worlds"!). It definitely went a long way in changing our perspective in what we have and what is "normal".
- We're seriously evaluating whether or not we will return to the States this summer. Our original plan was to do so for a shorter length of time, but we're re-evaluating budget, time, etc., and trying to make a wise decision (thinking and pr-ing seriously about trying to purchase a car). So with this in mind, I've been confronted with the thought that I might not be able to return to the States to do my intended stock up on our most "needed" and wanted things. The biggest (besides medicines and toiletries that we can't get here)--is clothes. I've found myself wondering how I'm going to outfit my kids if I can't do a run to Target, Kohl's, or the outlet malls! I pride myself on being a bargain shopper, but it's next to impossible to do here, unless you make it your life goal to spend hours digging through stacks of dusty, dirty market table-tops in the hopes of finding some deal on some article of clothing that is actually in good condition (with no buttons missing, zippers broken, etc.) So I was thrilled when I found some decent-looking boys clothes (which are especially hard to find!) last week on sale at our larger supermarket in town. I couldn't help but laugh as I did compromise a bit--not to the extent that the boys will be wearing purple glitter heart shirts or anything (which is more the normal fashion here in Asia), but in the wording written on some of the shirts. When you find clothes with English on them here in China, you can almost bet that it's going to say something totally crazy or weird! So what did I end up with? Eli's two best shirts (which he loves, by the way) read as following: "If you were me, you would be cool too." And "Eat carrots back to school book." I saw a lady walking past me on the street today with a typical Chinese outfit on--black shiny leggings with a floral print embossed on them, a navy print flowy shirt, and some crazy high-heel black boots. I kind of groaned and wondered, "Is that going to be me a year from now?" I thought of my favorite jeans that I wear all the time which now have holes in both the knees, my long underwear which are matching in the hole category; not to mention my socks! Eesh! It's official. My worst fears are coming to fruition. One year of not visiting the States and I'm pretty certain I'm either going to turn into one of those jumper-wearing, hand-me-down only ladies who comes and visits your Sunday school classes periodically, or else I'll be donning crazy black shiny leggings and tacky high-heeled boots (depending on if the hand-me-downs or Chinese market purchases are more easily accessible). Look out! I know you all will be waiting for me at the airport just to see which route I go upon our next arrival Stateside...
- Our last funny cultural thing worth mentioning is a new family who we are becoming friends with, I think! We had a mutual friend give a Chinese family our phone number and they called, asking if we could help them as they want their child to learn English. Because they are a friend of a friend, by China's rules, we had no choice but to agree to meet with them (although the number of people wanting their kid to spend time with us and be in an English environment is absolutely nothing new, and honestly gets pretty old and hard to determine who exactly to spend time with because the number of these are so great!). Anyway, the conversation went from awkward to over pretty quickly (luckily it was Kevin on the phone with them) as we grew to understand that this mom did not just want to get together once to meet, but rather she was trying to figure out just how many times a week and how many hours a day she could have her child come over and hang out with me and Noah! I gave her 2 different mornings I had available to do playdates at our home that week, but this was obviously not what she was expecting. Furthermore, the mom herself is out of town in Beijing working every day, so it was the mother-in-law who would be coming. And on top of that, the child was only 1, so not yet even speaking Chinese, much less ready to learn or practice English! When my two offers of playdate times were not taken, I thought that maybe we wouldn't hear back from our new friends. But, would you believe that they decided to try again, so we actually have another time set up for the whole families to meet up tomorrow and go to a park together! It's sure to be another time to have some good laughs as we will not doubt continue to make blunder after blunder as we feel our way in the dark here.... :) Thankful to have my sister and her hubby and two boys here with us to drag them along to join in the fun and the memory-making!
