Wow! Is this animal park for real???

There is a wild animal park in Beijing where you can feed live chickens and goats to lions! Big question....do we take the kids???

http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/660699/Live-feeding-continues-at-Badaling.aspx

My www.GovAtHome.com website is officially blocked in China!

I guess that is a milestone for Gov at Home :-) When I arrived in China the website was not blocked, and now it is. I still can get onto the website by using a VPN that route my web traffic through San Francisco.

Chinese people and their government

I have noticed a vast difference between the older generation and the younger generation when politics is discussed. The older generation does not have confidence or faith in their government and they are very guarded about it. The younger generation has full faith and confidence in their government and supports its policies - even restricting freedom of the press, real estate, etc. It is very interesting. It might be because the older generation grew up during very different times they experienced extreme poverty, were encouraged to tell lies about their parents which led to family members being put in jail or beaten, and they are tax payers. The younger generation has experience prosperity, freedom through social media, and not a brutal police force. Both old and young that I have spoken to support the government limiting religious activities. The younger generation even supports freedom of information. Most people have jobs in companies that are allowed to have access to whatever information they want. So they feel it is important to keep others under control. When I have asked who the others are - they will not say it because it sounds horrible coming out of their mouths, but it is the poor and the uneducated. I find it ironic that in a communist system it is the poor that often fights for it as a means of gaining parity, but when the new regime is in power they do all that they can to suppress the very people that put them there and who they were supposed to protect/help so that they are not thrown out of power, killed, etc. By restricting property rights and information - you keep the poor poor.......especially in a place where education is distributed based on where you own property and not where you reside.

Government turns on the heat

In Beijing the government decides when they will turn on the heat to everyone's apartment. I get the impression that heating is provided by running hot water through the pipes. You pay a set fee based on you apartment's square footage. For our 2 bedroom it was about $500. I think that there may be a way to adjust the heat somehow, but I am not sure. I guess over public services are government administered too, but we get to choose if we want to use our heater in the Summer and to what degree. I also purchased an electric heater to use just in case. The picture is of our heater where government provided heat is given.

to

Gavin gets out of going to school...

So we bought a ton of oranges this weekend, and Gavin went crazy eating easily 20-30 of them. The result was a rash from all of the acid in his throat...a very, very minor one, but they wouldn't let him go to school. When I attempted to explain to the nurse that he was fine - it was the oranges Gavin pulled off a fake cough so that he wouldn't have to go to school. They made me keep him home for 3 days.

Sacking the nanny

Chinese nannies are notorious for being terrible. I am not sure what happened to Chinese culture and why people do not know how to enjoy children, know how to be bubbly, or manage multiple tasks. It seems that most people are content if the nanny is friendly and does not hit the child, and even with one child hire 2 separate people - one to care for the child and the other to cook/clean.

We did find a babysitter that I really felt loved our boys, but she was so incredibly lazy. She would arrive at 7:30, and the first thing that she wanted to do was make herself breakfast and eat for an hour, then she'd play with the children a little, make lunch and eat for another hour, and then take a nap. She would then play with the baby a little and make dinner and eat for the last hour of the day. So I would be there feeding all of the boys, getting them ready for bed, etc. with my nanny sitting and eating at the table. When she left the house - it still look like a bomb had exploded. I felt like I had a guest, not an employee in my home. It was very stressful. So I let her go. I am now on the search for another nanny....and the quality of candidates is so bad. While I was at the agency Jack caught a glimpse of our old nanny in one of the rooms. He wouldn't leave the door and was banging and banging on it. Then he'd leave for a minute and run right back and bang and bang on the door.

I feel like your relationship with your nanny is like choosing a boyfriend. She wants to come back and work for us - do I take her back or move on???

Air Quality App for iPhones/iPads

If you were ever interested in knowing the air quality in Beijing, there is an app for it.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id457237326?mt=8&ls=1

Take a look at these moto mittens

These are new to me. I am going to see if I can get a pair for my stroller....I think that the handle bar slips through the middle so I am not sure if it is possible.

Pee "accident"

Children go to the bathroom outside in China. As embarrassing it is to admit - I love it....especially considering the cleanliness of the Chinese bathroom. Today Gavin and Sam were peeing on a tree, and Gavin peed on Sam. He told me that it was an accident....although I have a hard time believing that from the scope of damage to Sam's pants. Gavin was very upset when I made the boys switch pants. Here is Gavin with the babysitter refusing to go to school today!

The curbside sort

You see these sidewalk piles all over the city to sort and deliver packages. Maybe my Taobao order is in there somewhere!

How people get into the school

In Beijing you have to own a property in an area for a specified time period (3-5 years) in order to send your child to school. People do not need to live here for their children to send their kids to school. If that wasn't hard enough to do, not everyone is allowed to purchase property wherever you like. It is often determined by who employs you, where you grew up, where you went to school, etc. It makes it difficult to grow beyond your social status enherited by your birth. In the photo is an apartment building where people have purchased small units in dumpy apartments so that they can send their children to the best elementary school in Beijing....and most likely the best elementary school is China

Same product different quality...

I was skeptical of Chinese complaints that the exact same product line would have better quality in the U.S. than in China. Especially considering that for these items Chinese pay the same price as Americans. After trying Chinese pampers and Nokia cell phones. I believe them!
....I have heard a lot of people talk about how China needs the U.S. to buy their products. When I hear comments regarding the lack of quality goods in China I think about how false that statement is. China needs Chinese product that is currently being shipped to America. You have 1.3 billion people - none of them have a dryer, many do not own automobiles, etc. It just seems that there is a lot of demand in China that isn't being filled.

Chinese education trend

Wealthy parents have their children attend Chinese schools until they are finished with primary school where they have had to work hard building a base of knowledge. Then they transfer abroad where their children can perfect their English, not feel pressure to study, and learn American project/management skills that will lead them to positions in upper management someday. They do not worry about getting their children into college because either they will study in the U.S. or in China where the parents have enough connections to get their kids into the right university.

China a country in transition

China is a place where it seems that you can see life changing right before your eyes. You walk through shanty towns and road side stands where product arrives on bike to get to a library where you have giant touch screen computers where you can read news papers. It is very bizarre.

Local vendor gives us a lift to school in a motorized wagon!

The boys loved it! I was thinking about buying one to transport the boys to and from school. I would definitely need to do something to pimp the ride!

What do alligator skin, beef penis, and sea cucumbers have in common

....they are all delicacies of china, and you can eat them in one tasty dish! Lunch anyone?

Hair in the Peanut Butter

....the worst possible kind of hair. I am both sink to my stomach and very, very bummed. It is our last jar of American goodness.

Make sure your visas are current because you do get stopped by police!

Before we left we got a one year multiple entry visa, but it only allowed us to stay for 60 days before we needed to leave the country. I just couldn't do that with 3 kids that are so young. So the first thing I did upon arrival was to discover what options I had.

F Visa good for 6 months. A company essentially sponsors you and you can stay for 6 months even though you are not working. Goverment fees are about $150 per person, processing fees from a copy will run you $700-900 per person. We negotiated because we had so many kids. We paid $500 per person - totally $2,000 and we will have to pay it again in April.

X visa good for 6 months to 1 year depending on the school. You can get an X visa for attending university and language school specialize in this. To process the visa is much, much cheaper around $300 USD per person, but requires a full health exam.....you have to decide if you want to do that in Beijing. We didn't end up going this route because I could never figure out how to get the dependent visas processed for my children. It is possible, but it takes a lot of time and possibly some expensive trial and error. You need to get Apostille Stamps on the Birth Certificate from the Secretary of State where each child was born. Then I needed to translate them (I ended up having to do this step anyway), and possibly notarized....but who would notarize something in a foreign langaguate, and then it had to be stamped by the Chinese Consulate in the US that has jurisdiction over the state where you documents were stamped. So for Gavin that was the Chinese Consulate in LA, but for Jack and Sam it was the consulate in D.C. That process could have taken months, and by the time we paid the courier fees, I decided it wasn't worth the risk. I could never get a clear answer on the exact process - ever school gave me conflicting data....and their responses conflicted with what the Chinese Consulate wrote on the subject.

I wish I had been here on a student visa. There was one school that offered a 12 month visa (Daisy 84727866, 13801308396) which would have been amazing to be part of...and would have saved us a lot of money. There was also a cooking class at Beijing International Youth Research Institue (contact Huang Laoshi at 8454-4690) that I felt was tempting.
That class only required you to attend one day a week while the others require almost daily participation.

I didn't want to risk not having my paperwork in order because I have been stopped twice in the first month in Beijing and asked for my papers. There are enormous banners hung throughout the complex where I am living that request foreigners register with the local police station within 24 hours of their arrival.

The second time I was stopped I was walking with a Chinese America.....who was not asked for papers. It is interesting being caucasian in China because everyone is so....well Asian. You really stick out, and when you are in a police state that can be uncomfortable.

Things that have surprised me...

1. There are no ovens in apartments - We will accept any cookies that anyone wants to send with Tommy!
2. Government employees get a huge delivery of rice each year as part of their pension benefits. 3. Chinese people do not have voicemail
4. I think organic is really organic in China - It takes different than store bought.
5. People living in storage units in my apartment building...next to cars that people have paid over $100,000 for. Social injustice aside - it says a lot about the poor in Beijing.

Likes and dislikes so far..

The things I like –
- great vegetables - the flavors are so incredible. I do not know what I am going to do when we move back to the U.S.
- amazing food - nothing like it is in the U.S. 100 times better.
- friendly people who are really kind. We are served daily by those that are around us. They help so much with daily living. I can't even begin to thank them for helping us survive each day.
- merry go rounds - You begin to realize that all of the litigation might keep us safer, but it also sucks the enjoyment out of life.
- visiting the supermarket - it is always a fun adventure watching the boys see something cool at the markets.
- learning new ways of doing things - I like to learn the strengths of each culture, and why they do certain things. In China for example, they drink a lot of soup, and they do it for the calicium that goes into the water from the bones. I didn't know that was the case.
- subways - clean, effieicent, cheap (30 cents per ride), close, and in English
- cheap labor - deliveries and repairs are fast. So are massages, etc.
- taxi - they are cheap - $5 will get you across town, $1.50 in your neighborhood.
- not having to fight the kids to learn Chinese
- exploring new places
- science museum - they have the most incredible science musuem. we go at least once a month.
- the clothing - the styles on the boys clothing is cuter.
- having someone cook and clean...I just point and say what I want her to cook and it is done
- long school days - an absolute necessity when I have been getting settled.
- accelerated learning on some things....my friend claims that her 2nd child after 2 months is playing more difficult peices than her oldest who has been taking piano classes for years in the U.S.

what I don’t like
- sewer gases coming up through the floor or our bathroom
- bathrooms are smelly
- not being able to read
- feeling behind or burdensome because I always need help translating
- dirty - Beijing has a lot of construction going on
- crap in my apartment that is broken but the landlord doesn't want me to throw it away, but at the same time feels entitled to leave in the apartment
- the weather - autumn is the only bearable season in Beijing. Winters are horribly cold, sandstorms come in Spring, and Summer is hot, humid and polluted.
- long school days - there is no family time
- pressures of Chinese living – maybe you can live up to them if you have one child and 4 grandparents and 2 parents working a child you can get them to perform at that level....as a single mom of three kids I am just happy to get through the day.....which reminds me that Gavin doesn't have his jump rope at school! Ahhhhh!
- mandatory 2 1/2 hour naps at school. Getting kids to bed at night is a problem.
- not having a dryer...cloths do not dry fast enough and get really musty smelling.
- there is no real oven

Electric outlets

....I am sure the developer of Chinese housing may have saved a few hundred dollars by not putting more than one outlet per room. Then people send 20x that to figure something out with extension cords and daisy chains....every fire fighters worst nightmare. With so many people living in each apartment building - it doesn't seem like a safe solution.

The alley behind our apartment

There is an alley/shanty town behind our house. It is fun to walk through it because it is so typical Chinese. There are little noodle making shops, living frogs waiting to be purchased and cooked, charcoal bricks that are burned for road side meals, and fruit and veggie booths where the vendor is smoking right next to the food. As I walked through the shanty town with a friend the other day she mentioned that the vendors live there...and I was just like - where? They live in make shift tents or in their store/shack.

I think most people would walk through this alley and be disgusted. As they should be - limited running water, poor sanitation, poor hygene. The mosquitos in Beijing are so horrible and when you think about their ability to spread disease - it makes you all that more disturbed. Real estate prices in Beijing are comparable to any other big city around the world. I am sure in 5 years that this alley will no longer be here. Is that progress?

As I walk down the alley I think of how fresh and full of flavor everything is compared to their big box counterparts. The organic produce in the US even fails in comparison. It makes you realize that with modernization and prosperity that there are some sacrifices made. It also makes you think about how the rest of the world lives - I don't think it is unique to china that people are living in shacks and tents with extreme temperatures. It makes you think of what we have come to expect in the US for ourselves. The tent cities reported as travisties by the media in the US are daily accepted realities everywhere else in the world.

How does the one child policy work?

Women in America often comment on the tragedy of the one child policy. From the perspective of a woman rearing 3 children I am thankful for those experiences watching my children bond with each other. That said, most Asian women that I know do not want more than one child. They feel it is too much work, and there is so much pressure to perform for both the parents and the child that raising multiple children is just not practical.

I have heard that the government allows you to have more than one child if you and your spouse are both only children. I have also heard that you are allowed to have more than one child if your first was a girl. I suspect that many Chinese women wanting more than one child are taking fertility medications because it seems to me that there are a lot of twins. I have also know of families that want two children to have them while living abroad.

Either way the Chinese are forecasting over a 30% reduction in population within 30 years. Ultimately they may have a faster reduction than what they originally anticipated because the task of rearing children is so shunned that many woman are opting out of having children all together.

Never, never pay in advance...

If you ever live in China you will quickly learn that once you pay for something there is a very good chance you will not get your money back. Resist the temptation to pay in advance for services to get a better deal or for convenience.

Locating an Apartment

To find an apartment you have to hire a realtor in the area that you are looking to rent. The fee is one months rent. Then he hunts for you based on your criteria. Depending on the area you will be living in - you may or may not be able to negotiate. If you are able to negotiate here are the items you want to think about adding to that list.

1. Owner pays for annual heating fee - the government charges it for the gas to heat your apartment. For our 127 square meter apartment in Beijing that fee was 3300 RMB
2. Often the rent is paid in 3,6,12 month increments - that is negotiable as is the deposit amount
3. You have to pay taxes to the government when you rent an apartment of 5-10% of the rental amount per month. Who pays it is something that should be discussed in advance and is negotiable.
4. What happens if you terminate the lease.
5. That the realtor takes your passport/visa to the police station to get your permanent residency card. We went with a premiere company, and we felt comfortable doing this - has saved us several trips downtown.
6. Who pays the utilities
7. Do a walk through and negotiate furniture and any fixes that might be needed.
8. You will find that your apartment might have a ton of old things that may or may not be working...work that out with your landlord in advance because it is my understanding that it is very rude to ask your landlord if you can throw the broken items away.

If someone gives you a website with rental units available - do not waste your time. Most units are not for rent and certainly not at the price indicated. Realtors do that so that you will call them - it is the typical bait and switch.

You typically do not see leases for less than 12 months, but inflation on rents have been around 25% per year - so you might be able to negotiate something.

You can also rent a "serviced" apartment for shorter term stays.

One thing that you have to expect is that every apartment has its own drawbacks....is it a smelly bathroom, roaches, no sidewalks to keep children safe in the complex, hot water issues, terrible furniture, no bathtub, shower without a door....That is life in China.

Boys going through their daily health exam

Every day before schools starts the boys go through a health exam where the nurse looks down their throat and at their hands. Great except they don't wash between students - even when they have inspected someone with a cold.

Jack shows off his mad taxi skills

Jack is already speaking Mandarin words, and it takes people by surprise to hear him speaking Chinese with a perfect accent. He is also picking up Chinese ways. We were walking home from school last week when I notice him looking down the road at the cars, and next thing I know he starts waiving his hands and starts yelling "Taxi!" When Tommy gets here we have to get this on video!

*No babies were injured in the production of these photographs

Taobao.com

If you live in China, you learn very quickly about Taobao. It is an online seller similar to Amazon, but it sells things at a fraction of the price - like 50% discounts. With kids it is great because you don't have to take them out shopping with you....you simpley look at pictures online, and they pick what they like.

You have to love Taobao, because instead of running from store to store with 3 little boys - I can order something from the comfort of my own home.....BUT you have to have a sense of humor because if they do not have something that you've ordered - instead of canceling that part of your order they send you the next best thing.....like these slippers that I have to keep in my home for guests. Chinese people keep slippers in their home for guests. I ordered grey so that I could have both male and female guests wear the same slippers....they sent me purple.

Same phone number U.S. or China

When I first traveled abroad in 1990 it cost about $5 per minute to place a call in Spain to the United States. 20 years later in China I have the same telephone number as in the U.S. for my landline. We use Voice Over IP - so anywhere there is an internet connection I can plug in my phone. It sounds just like it does in the United States, and I make telephone calls just like I would in the U.S.....so when I am dialing in China from China it is still an international call. I get free international calls. For my Chinese cell phone I just signed up for a Skype phone number and have all of my calls forwarded to my cell phone. It is wonderful. The drawback is that I cannot initiate calls on my cell phone. Which is a major bummer.

Bunk Beds for the Boys...

I have been promising the boys bunk beds. I finally pulled the trigger. The boys were very excited about it. It really helps out with the bed time routine.

Banking in China - the major pain

Things in China just are not as convenient. You want a bike lock - you go to the bike lock store. You need wrapping paper - there is a stationary store....but buy 20 roles because you are barely able to wrap a gift with one roll. Banking is what really took me the most by surprise.

I went to the Bank and set up an account. In America that would have obviously enabled you to do online banking - not so in China. You need a special bank account to have an online account. So I went to the bank the other day, and set up that account. When I got home I learned that I needed to download software to do it....which is a pain, but what was worse is that their software is so old that it doesn't run on any computer sold in the US since about 2005. So you have to take an extra step so that your computer can load the new software. After you are done with that you can access your information online, but if you want to pay for something - you have to attach one of those password generators...and they tell you if you loose it someone can steal all of your money...so Don't Loose It!

Boys are adjusting

The boys are loving Beijing. In many ways it is the ideal place for them. They can pee outside (every man's dream). Each trip to the grocery store is filled with adventure (cows livers, fish, turtles, crabs, ....). They have a heap of friends that live in our complex and play in the yard and in their homes - they just knock on our door at 7,8,9,10 at night. They can't believe that we go to bed so early. They get to play on a merry go round. They do occasionally say they miss home, but there are many more days when they tell me how much they love being in China.

We Skyped with Tommy for the first time about 2 weeks ago, and now Gavin often tells me that he misses his dad. It was interesting watching the boys interact with Tommy via Skype. They set up the camera so that Tommy could see their jumps. Then they played hide and seek with Tommy. Gavin put the computer in the closet, closed the door, counted, and then found Tommy. I don't know if you think that is cute or if it is depressing, but it is what it is for the next 10 months. Tommy gets her on November 22nd. Everyone will be very excited to see him.

We are finding that we have different conversations with the boys here. For example, why we can't use Youtube, why people smoke, etc.

With so much attention the boys are blossoming socially in unexpected ways.

All in all we are having a fun adventure.

McDonald's Delivers!

Right to your door in 5 minutes, and when you place an order over the phone it goes to a call center that speaks English. I have tried to get extra pickles.....never works. They always come without pickles. The burgers taste the same, fries are always cold, but the McFlurries are frozen. Delivery charge is $1 - a bargain considering that otherwise I would have to lug 3 kids on the joovy caboose for a 20 minute walk, stand in line, attempt to speak Mandarin, and then pin everyone to their seats to eat dinner. There are some benefits to living in a location with such low labor costs where people are packed together like sardines!

Jump Rope Obssessed

The Chinese school system fixes its attention on some of the most random things....like jumping rope. They are obsessed with jump roping. They have a class for it at school and you see people practicing in the playgrounds.

Babysitter culture gap

Our babysitter is a very nice woman. We like her because she plays with the boys. That is a tough thing to find in China. That said, there is a big cutural gap between what my expectations are and what a Chinese Ayi knows to do. She works for us from 7:30-7:00 pm at night. She arrived this morning on time at 7:30. The first thing she did was to make herself breakfast. Then she took the baby outside to exercise with all of the old people in the courtyard - leaving the baby in the stroller, she exercised. Then she took a nap from 11:00-12:00, and now from 12:00-12:30 she has gone into my room to watch the baby sleep and to stroke his arms (that sounds ridiculous, but it is actually common in Chinese culture)....but it could explain why Jack is waking up 2 times a night right now. So much training....so little time!

Jen

One child policy impact on education

It is always interesting when we walk down the street and people start counting the boys. I hear gasps of “3 children!” Then they give me a thumbs up and say something to the effect that I am an amazing woman.

There are a lot of implications to the one-child policy, and most of them are negative in my opinion. The children born after that policy was implemented are raised in an environment where they are both pampered and pressured. They do no work and lack skills to do most things independently, and with only one child there is a lot of pressure for perfection which is channeled through academic and extra curricular performance. Kids know at a very early age (9 or 10) that there is no time for playing – that there time from 8-4 is in school; 4-7 is extra lessons in math, science, sports, instruments, etc. and 7-11 is homework time. They are even serious about things that don’t impact your life in the long run – like ping pong. It breeds a group of people that are educated, but cannot do much with the knowledge that they have acquired. They never work on teams so they don’t know how to collaborate, and they have never had to figure anything out. So unless you can give instructions on every detail of a project – it often can’t be completed by the person. In most companies all of the middle to upper management is either Chinese educated in the U.S. or American.

The system perpetuates itself. You have to study hard and memorize or you can't pass the state exams with a high enough score. If you don't have the high score there is no place for you at university. No where does an university ask about projects you've done, your ability to get along with others, or test your ability to figure things out independently, your ability to be creative....just math, Chinese, science, English, etc.

Utilities....

The utilities are a bit confusing.

Electricity is prepaid. You get a card – my personal assistant got the card for me. It was probably part of setting up the service to my unit. There is a meter in the hallway on our floor that has everyone’s meter. You have to go to your meter periodically to see if your unit light is flashing. If it is you are low on power. Here are the steps to pay the electric bill.
Step 1: Go to the utility office (picture 1 - it is the basement of our apartment complex)
Step 2: Pay them in cash and they write you out a carbon copy reciept
Step 3: They fill up your card on a computer
Step 4: You insert the card into the utility box on your floor...the oneit back into your utility box so that it can read how much you spent, and then you pull it out and keep it in your home. If you forget to put more money on your card, your electricity is turned off.

Water: This is something you pay after you have used it. There is a service person that comes around to your apartment once a month to read the meter inside your apartment. It is very helpful to have an Ayi home to open the door. If you are not there, then they just come back next month. I am sure that there is a procedure for making an appointment, but I haven’t had to do that yet. In a week or so after they read your meter, they will leave a note outside your door. Nothing here looks like an official receipt or statement so it is hard not reading Chinese because you never know if something is junk or important. We haven’t paid our water bill for 2 months – somehow the bill was lost, and no one knows how to pay the bill without it. So I am waiting for a new bill.

Gas: the heater for your home is turned on by the Chinese government, and it is my understanding that you don’t control how much or little hot air comes into your home. You get a statement on your door for the fee for the entire year. That fee is paid in one lump sum. Ours was 3,300 RMB (about $500) for a 127 square meter, 2 bedroom apartment. You pay it at your local utility office in your complex.

Hot water heater: We have an on demand system….I am not sure how it works. I am sure one day I will no longer have hot water, and then I will figure out how to pay that bill. That is what happened with the electicity…

Jackenese

So little Jack is speaking Chinese....or so that is what my friends who speak Chinese tell me. I wouldn't know because I don't understand Chinese so it all just sounds like he is babbling to me, but when he babbles in front of them they go crazy.

Really I would love to think that he speaks Chinese, but really I wonder if it is just Jack babbling and my friends assinging meaning to the babbling. Because Chinese is a monosyllable language it would be easy to think that a baby is speaking Chinese when he is in fact just babbling. I do notice a difference - Chinese people assign meaning to the babbling that their children are doing and say - and the child repeats it. In English we wait for things to emerge...you will hear a lot of babbling and then you will hear something meaningful eventually emerge.

Jack is realy cute and tells people hello, good bye, thank you, etc. in Chinese. I am told he sounds like he is Chinese. I also catch him sometimes talking to himself saying Chinese words over the English word - i.e. he doesn't say plane he calls it "fe chi". Undoubtedly when we return he will be as fluent in Mandarin as he is in English, but it most likely will be quickly lost when we return to the U.S.

Right now I am getting a kick out of what Jack can say. He has 3 phrases as his staples: Eat it! Wait up! and I won! The perfect three phrases for the last of 3 little boys.

Living in Communist China

It is easy to look past communism in China because it is so capitalistic in nature. Everyone is out to make money so in many aspects it does not feel like I am in a communist country – especially when from my bedroom window I see the Intel building. It kind of feels like any other big city around the world. You can go to McDonalds, talk freely on a cell phone, etc.

Then you have these moments of extreme discomfort, and where you realize that although huge advancements have been made in China towards democracy, you are still in a communist country. In our apartment complex there are banners hung from each of the buildings telling foreigners that they must register with the local police station. That is concerning enough, but I have been stopped on two occasions and asked to see my papers. Ironically one of the times I was walking down the street with one of my American Chinese friends. They didn’t request to see her papers.

Another reminder is church – Chinese nationals are not allowed to attend church with foreigners. I didn’t think/care much about it until the other day my friend’s husband in passing told me that he and his wife want to attend church with me. I have been warned that there are many people in China in jail for proselytizing. Once again you do not think much about it because you don’t see jails on your walk to and from kindergarten, but they are there, and I have been warned to be cautious.

Of course websites are monitored and the government chooses what you can and cannot see. I find it rather ironic that major news channels like MSNBC are not blocked, but libertarian websites are. It makes you realize that government not only clamps down on freedom of speech to protect their power, but also to implement policies that otherwise would be very unpopular if people knew what the government was doing.

The government often monitors expat groups and their discussions. You hear and read on various yahoo groups where one member requires other members not to disclose VPN companies, etc. because the government has a history of shutting them down. As of last week my website promoting Congressman work, live, and vote from their home district made the list. www.GovAtHome.com . Now I have to sign into my VPN to access it. A VPN routes all of your web requests through routers in the US or Europe so you have access to all of the news.

It has led to some interesting discussions with Gavin – he wants to know why he can’t watch youtube.com. It is such an amazing educational tool. Anytime he was curious about the body there usually was an animated video that we could pull up to explain how the body worked, diseases, etc.