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.