good morning, Shanghai!

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I am up very early (pre-5am) because I apparently offered to get up with Mark and make him coffee. I sorta remember being nice and offering, but when he gently woke me up and said "did you really mean it?" I had to think fast, and said "oh sure! of course". I really didn't mind, but the fact that we went to bed after midnight forced me to make 2 cups. I am up for the day at this point and need a little java power to get me through. I don't drink coffee every day, but I use it as a pick me up on days like today. Mark is heading somewhere (insert obscure Chinese city name) via train this morning. He has a sales opportunity and is off to do what he came here to do. He's been super busy the last couple weeks. He got back on Monday night just before the kids went to bed, and then had class last night and left at the crack this morning. He brought clothes with him since there may be an opportunity to have dinner with these potential clients. The good news is we have next week together as a family. We are trying to go to Huangshan, a mountain area that is famous for it's views and natural scenery. We have no agenda while there, and expect it to be a much more challenging language experience to both get there and even while we are there. it's not Shanghai so we don't expect there will be much spoken or written English. We'll see. The issue we face now is getting there. We have a hotel for 4 nights, but the transportation options are limited. Mark is going to try to buy bus tickets today. It's about 5 hours by bus, and while that sounds icky, we'd rather do that that than skip the trip. The overnight train is no longer an option because the soft sleepers are sold out. Hard sleepers, while fabulous blog potential might send me over the edge. From what I gather, these are 3 high metal bunks with canvas tops, and they are likely not air conditioned. Oh and 3 across means strangers next to you and we'd all be split up. And the description can stop there because there's NO WAY I'd do that to myself or my kids. Ironically, we were told numerous times that you can't get tickets for the train more than 2 days in advance. However, more than 2 days in advance of our trip these trains are sold out of the good seats. Turns out, they do hold/reserve/sell tickets to students, government workers and apparently anyone but us, before that 2 day window. That's China. Rules that are not enforced consistently and the hit or miss attempt by us to figure it all out. If this trip doesn't happen, we'll just do smaller trips around Shanghai. There are tons of sites and areas yet to be explored closer to where we are. We'll see what unfolds.

I'm really into my routine now of going to school and I am liking it more and more. Yesterday, we started learning characters. Reading. Not writing yet. Writing may not happen this session, and that's fine with me. To even be able to read some of the characters feel like this amazing newfound power. There are great stories that go with many of the characters. There's an evolution from the traditional depiction of something to the more modern simplified Chinese characters we are learning. For example 紙 traditional became 纸 simplified which means zhǐ or paper. According to my teacher, the character was created to represent silk. Silk was the original "paper" used in China. The left side of the character looks like cloth (at least it does now that she told me that) and that helps me remember it. I am not sure if and how I'll remember thousands of such characters, but for now I have about 40 of them I'm recognizing and putting together to form simple sentences. It's way cool. I bought a new Chinese-English dictionary since my phrase book is not cutting it as a quick reference for key words. I also spend tons of time on Mandarin Tools site translating and looking up words and characters. A great resource for all my translating needs.

I spent some time at the school yesterday. I hung out after a parents meeting and waited for Emily to finish her art class (which she loves). I went to the school cafe (can't get over that I can have espresso at my kids school) and listened to my Chinese text being read on my iPod. Oh, I had a mean taxi driver take me to the school. I gave him the address in Chinese and this guy did not get it. So I called the school and confirmed the cross street and said that to the driver. He just started yelling at me. Like total crazy man yelling. I think he wanted me to get out of the taxi...but I wasn't sure. He was YELLING at me and ranting and raving...so I yelled back. He said "this is Hongqiao Road" in Chinese and I said "it's 3466 and I want 1161!!" right back at him. Finally he kept going and we got there. I don't really get why he was so mad. Maybe because it was a short taxi ride? But there's a minimum fare and he got that, so whatever. It was not walkable for me and he drives a taxi to take people places. When I was getting out he tried to be my pal and grunted and laughed like we had just had a great adventure. I muttered a less than friendly response in English and went on my way. Growl. He was a jerk. The good news is I didn't care. I really didn't. I knew where I wanted to go, and just kept repeating it and finally we got there. Sigh. That was the worst taxi to date. And I have been in MANY so far.

I am sure everyone is reading about the horrible milk crisis here. It's all over the news here too and I am reading about it online. The school sent an immediate response and assured us that they did not get milk from any of the brands with issues. However, to be extra safe, they pulled all dairy from the menu. I tossed our milk and yogurt and bought a box of imported milk for cereal. That box kind that stays fresh til you open it and then lasts a week. We don't do much dairy here, but now we will only do imported.

The weather has turned back to absurdly hot and humid. We had heard now would be the cooler fall-like time. Still waiting.

Had to add this bit after posting. I just took the kids down to the bus and we were a bit early. I thought it was 7:10 but it was 6:10! Oops. Poor kids lost a precious hour of sleep. While we were down stairs I got to show off my language skills. I said "xiao gou" and the owner of a little dog smiled and nodded and said it back. I am practically fluent. I can say little dog (xiao gao) AND little cat (xiao mao) in Chinese. Considering how much I adore animals, this is especially hilarious to me that I have mastered animals before other key phrases. I have been speaking more and more Chinese and understanding more and more which is exciting. I was able to talk to the bus driver yesterday and confirm only 1 kid rides the bus home on Tuesday and Thursday. He said it to me and I did my typical confused face before realizing I understood him and could reply! So I did just that. I said yes, 1 kid today and 1 kid on Thursday. These tiny little victories make me so happy.

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Comments

[Linda]

The Mean Taxi Driver
Wow Suzanne...I like your style. All I can think to say is BRAVO! Wish I could say it...I mean, write it... in Mandarin.

[Dad]

Go Suzanne B.!
I love the story. That is so Suzanne! I bet he had story at the end of the day.