Settling In: Things have become easier day by day. We live close to the local Wal-Mart (within walking distance) and shop there often. Food is tricky, we hired an Ayi (Chinese Nanny) to help in the apartment and with dinner 6 days a week but, it didn’t work out. She was lazy and couldn’t take direction and we were paying WAY too good for that kind of attitude so after 2 weeks, she was gone. Just walking into any ole restaurant is not really an option right now since we cannot speak or read Chinese, unless there are pictures we don’t eat there – there also has to be a lot of people there for us to consider it which makes it even more difficult because we in ourselves are a bit of a spectacle when in public (re: san ghe, san ghe, san ghe). But so far so good – hey! Life is an adventure.
Silver & Gold: In the last few months we have met many friends and been hosted to some of the best dinners we have ever had. It’s hard not to generalize Chinese people as a whole because most everyone we have met has been supremely generous to us, which is not an easy task considering the size of our family. We have been lucky enough to see some of the city sites thanks to our new companions and I think that has allowed us to understand the culture and language more and navigate to where we need to go with ease. We have made some great friends and are amazed everyday by their kindness.
Easy Peasy: Being a full time student myself, I underestimated the feat in relocating to a new country, establishing a family of five comfortably, homeschooling Drake efficiently and while juggling other everyday tasks and anything else that may pop up – which there are a few things daily! Outside of my own time management issues and dilemmas, the children have adapted superbly. I don’t think we could have imagined or asked for a better transition.
Boom, Boom, Boom: Lucky us, our community is in a new part of Nanjing so there are apartments being sold, stores and restaurants opening every day. What does this mean for us? Random fireworks shows happening throughout the day. Morning, noon, night – some are pretty some are loud but all are right outside our building. In China, any point of celebration calls for fireworks, baby born; just married; graduate; holiday. This is also just one of several things we have taken note of as a more free civil liberty policy than in the US (more on that later).
Gone one day, here the next: In China, when they build something no time is wasted. Across the street from our apartment is a building under construction. In only a few weeks it has been raised several floors and looking from different points in our apartment we have said a few times – was that building there yesterday? Of course it probably was but the progress being made each day is pretty amazing. I am keeping a photo diary of one of the buildings for a later post.
Wal-Mart: No matter where we go, we can’t seem to stay out of the local Wal-Mart. Anytime we have been on vacation we have had to make a stop into wallyworld for something we just couldn’t go any longer without. In Nanjing, it’s no different. We seem to go there at least every other day and without realizing it before, put on a show for the locals as they watch us fill our cart with liquid items and follow us to the checkout isle to see how we will fit it all into our stroller – it’s so bizarre. Some of these people literally follow us around and then stand at the end of the checkout, just watching. I imagine it to be a lot like the job of a National Geographic cameraman who can’t interfere when the lion is about to pounce on the zebra, they can only sit silent and observe.
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