Sunday, May 27

We’ve been here for 20 days.  That sounds short; it feels more lengthy than that, more like our reality has become all the small, ordinary daily activities and choices that need to be made.  For instance, I want to try to find the Catholic mass this morning (which has been moved from the ‘prominent’ church to a secret location because of renovation in the church.  Someone said, ‘just look for a gathering of Koreans’—interesting remark!), we are meeting Nick and Ms. Alice at the buffet restaurant for lunch—good to have interpreters for these kinds of experiences—and we need to get to the location of the birthday party at 2pm.  While there, I will be close to the expensive grocery, where I need to get some food that will sustain Julia for the week (yesterday she ate: oatmeal for breakfast, a hot dog and an orange soda, crackers and fruit, rice krispies for dinner—I need to diversify her diet!!).  So I need to figure out the routes of buses, remember to get money from my (dwindling!) stash, remember to get the camera card out of the computer (middle-aged brain disease), charge the phone so that I can call someone if I get lost, put the sheets in the washer so that they can be hung to dry (where?!) before we return to sleep in them, fill water bottles, take some TP with us just in case, and account for bus fare.

I wrote that paragraph at 6:15 a.m., not my usual procedure.  Julia got up about then, and we puttered around until awake enough to get started on her homework—which turned out to be extensive! Good thing we started before this afternoon.   Math is a strong area for her, but the challenge is to learn to read a graph; there are a lot of varieties in graphs and a number of aspects to learn about.  The quantity of homework is giving her a chance to repeat and thus reinforce the ideas; not that she sees it that way!  Two hours later, we decided to get in gear for our outing.  It’s going to be hot again today, hot and humid.  Sounds like home! 

As we got to the bus stop, I noticed a small gathering:  three men and their bird cages sitting on the grass.  Such a Chinese experience:  older people gathered to socialize, right smack next to a major highway.  

In fact, this turned out to be a day filled with quintessential experiences, and as good a day as we’ve had in our adventure in China.  We had a lot of fun, socialized with both ex-pats and Chinese, ate some really good food, enjoyed the positive elements of urban life, got in a little shopping, appreciated the familiar experience of Mass, scootered successfully and competitively, negotiated the buses with finesse, including getting to strap hang, and spent a bit of time by the sea.  Details of all these things to follow!

We were easily successful finding the location of Mass—I confirmed my sense of the right stop by showing the woman standing next to me on the bus the slip with the address written on it; quick, easy communication that is so satisfying for everyone, really, it’s funny how much they like to know what I am doing and to give me a little assistance in doing it, and how much I like that smitch of communication. 

There were about 140 people in the makeshift chapel, all Korean; we were the only non-Koreans.  The mass was in Korean, of course, but key bits were translated into an English handout.  I love the experience of going to mass in a foreign language: at a basic and simple level, it makes me feel deeply rooted.  There’s a lot to examine about the Catholic Church, but when you are in faraway lands with much that is unfamiliar and different and sometimes disconcerting, to enter the known rhythms of the long established rituals and prayers is to feel stability, and community.  I knew what those people were doing and saying, despite the language barrier.  And, they even sang one hymn we recognized!  And could see the refrain of—Julia and I noted that Maggie would have known all the verses, and 6 others not included!  Not my strength.  It was the Feast of Pentecost, and Julia was delighted with a tiny paper dove that was distributed to the congregation.  Also with the basket of lollipops that was provided at the alter during communion for children not receiving communion! Novel addition to the service. 

The priest’s homily spoke about the ‘serious sitting around’ that was happening prior to the coming of Christ, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, and he urged the message that Christ is telling us “Take your life as seriously as I do!  Hiding is not allowed anymore!  Show up and show off.  Go.”  As this coincides with my current life, I found it a thought provoking message—where is the chaos? Where do others not want to go? Where are we likely to bring light and life?  Standing in China, I am more apt, than in South Bend, to think that there is serious chaos that needs me and that it is actually possible to ‘go.’ 

We removed our shoes to enter the chapel; it was a serious request!  And about half the women wore veils; I had the feeling that the prayers did not include the newly changed language that is causing consternation among us routinized attendees.  At the Sign of the Peace, everyone gave each neighbor a quick bow from the hips with hands clasped at the chest.  It had the effect of a lot of bobbing! But was a nice way to do this 60s innovative thing that I have never been comfortable with!

Off to lunch—this is a buffet at a fancy hotel (the same hotel that hosted the play last week; they offered a discounted price to attendees); many of the local hotels have a restaurant like this, with both western and asian food.  The quality varies; Nick and Ms. Alice have tried a number of them, as a periodic outing and opportunity to have western food.  We were all interested to see the quality of this one, and happy to have it at about half price.  Sunday afternoon buffet sounded like a pleasant experience, and we were able to secure a window seat with views of the ocean (and the pervasive fog). Nick and Alice have been very good to us, sheparding us through interesting experiences and giving us lots of pointers on negotiating the city.  We ate from all areas of the buffet—the food was fabulous! And not just because we have eaten very little cooked food in the last 3 weeks.  I had a serving of pasta with cream sauce that was divine, and Julia ate 9 meat dumplings with soy sauce.  There were a dozen kinds of asian small salads—eggplant, a cole slaw type thing, a seafood salad, etc etc. All tasty. I had a small roasted bass with snow peas, and delicious onions and peppers.  Salted fried mushrooms, steamed vegetable buns, tiny local clams, mussels and scallops, sushi—it was all so good.  Bread! And cheese! That tasted like home.  But the piece de la resistance was the desserts.  Walnut tarts, tiny petit fours in a half dozen flavors, tiny cream puffs with carmelized topping, gummy whatevers for Julia, crepes, dragon fruit—got to eat dragon fruit in China!—and, the very best:  New Zealand ice cream.  The Mango was divine, like a piece of mango only even better.  We ate for 2 hours, leisurely, with kiwi ice tea and pots of hot tea to wash it down.  And the best part of all:  Julia was free!! So I still have one discount ticket left! It expires on Friday, so I think we will go back and celebrate Elinor’s upcoming birthday with another extravagant meal at rock bottom prices!

Julia enjoying her dumplings

Julia, Ms. Alice, and Nick at our table with the great view (and of course, Julia's scooter tucked in the background)

We ambled over to the shopping mall—Marina City—where the birthday party to which Julia had been invited was being held in something akin to Little Gym.  There was a boat show happening in the actual marina, with lots of hoopla, balloons, flags, music etc.  The Chinese children were out in force, playing in the great fountains that are on the mall—as Alice said, these are their ‘playgrounds.’  I left Julia at the party to dash to the Jusco toy department and pick up the two toys she has selected locally to be birthday presents—how I was going to manage to make that a surprise had been worrying me!  And, a quick stop at the expensive grocery for edible bread and some ham for Julia’s sandwiches.  Ok, so I also made a purchase for the girls’ coming home gift while at Jusco, but I swear, the items were on a 70% sale! I was proud of myself for having resisted earlier and being rewarded by this sale!

The fountains, all dressed up with balloons and colors

Children in their water playground

Lots of fun, active, play at the birthday party

Another part of the party room

The beautiful, fruit-covered cake and the birthday girl blowing out her candles

Back at the (hot) children's gym, I chatted with some parents; one is the Greek mother of an adorable little girl in my class.  They are heading home to Greece for the summer on Tuesday; she wants a formal ‘progress report’ which makes me laugh, since I have been there for 3 weeks, and the child turns 3 on June 11^th—she shouldn’t even be in school!  But I could say lots of positive things to her, and I do think that’s part of my mission here—to help some of these intense parents to relax a little. 

Another person I talked to is the Japanese mother of two kids who are half English.  I have been intrigued by the information that the best bread in Qingdao is at a hard-to-find Japanese bakery.  This is a challenge for me; just what I like to find while traveling, an obscure shop with something to treasure.  She obliged by giving me taxi directions, and offered to bring me some merchandise when she takes her children to the supplementary school there on Monday; that way we can try it out.  We had a chat about raising biracial and bilingual children and in countries not of their birth, and she corroborated the advice that what I should do for Julia is concentrate on learning to speak Chinese; let the written/reading part follow as it develops naturally.  She described Chinese as very hard to learn; this is where Abe takes front and center, when he starts Chinese in the fall!

So, I have had a number of conversations with ex-pats in the last two days (Greek, Australian, Japanese, American).  This is an interesting subset of the world’s population:  people who choose to move for extended periods of time to another country, particularly a place like China that is very different from most other countries and in development too.  They all seem to feel some level of isolation, not debilitating but enough to cause them to seek other international people, whether through something like an international school or an international fellowship (religious) group, or whatever.  The Japanese mother actually left Japan 18 years ago, and came to Qingdao from Switzerland—that seems like a hard transition!  I would be fearful of living in a bubble, though, if I got strongly involved in an international community.  On the other hand, the implication is that it can be challenging to break into the Chinese community.  It makes me more grateful for the friendliness offered by Maggie/Alex, and by the two aides in my class.  Also, the mother of the birthday girl, who is married to an Englishman and keenly aware that her children are a bit outsiders here, in the city where she was born.

  

I wonder, too, about these foreigners who make this choice:  they seem to have a heightened capacity for being outsiders, outliers.  And even though some of them are heading home, after 3 or 4 or 7 years, I wonder if they will ever fully re-enter that society.  Maybe they aren’t destined to that role.  I am struck by the fact that although I have always wanted to travel, and did take a year long junior abroad experience, etc, it never, I repeat, never occurred to me to up and move to another country.  I don’t think I had even quite verbalized that for myself.  I don’t want to live in France, just shop and eat there! (for an instance).  On the other hand, boy, do I wish I had worked harder at acquiring another language.  It’s shameful, really.

All the international people are heading out, home or traveling, on June 16^th, as soon as school is done for all the students above the age of 4.  We will be here holding down the fort with the Chinese staff for two more weeks!  What that is going to mean for Julia, is the pressing question.  I’ll let you know as it develops!

Julia had a great social time running and screaming with a lot of children for 2 hours; I had to drag her away, despite the fact that it was hot in there.  We scootered along the Boardwalk—she was amazed that I was right, it was right there by the Mall!  We could see some eager souls using the low tide to climb down onto the tiny spit of sand and ‘do the beach.’  Tourists, no doubt, in for an afternoon! 

Julia scootering along the boardwalk - always full of attractions

The hopeful beach-goers

As we scootered up to the community hill at 5:30, after a long, fulfilling and happy day, Julia had nirvana—as she scootered by a boy on his scooter, he realized she was the girl with whom he had raced the other day, just as she made the same connection. He whipped his scooter around the bench, and the race was on!  She looked over her shoulder at me with an expression of pure bliss—this is what she wants from life!  I wish I could have captured the moment for each of them!  They raced up and down for 10 minutes, alternating the lead, intensely concentrating on speed, positioning, and even a bit on style.  It was the perfect end to a very good, very Qingdao day for Tracey and Julia.  All we need is a little nutella on the delicious rolls we brought home from the buffet!   

Riding the bus home - happily holding onto a pole!

Racing up...

...and down!

This makes Julia so happy!