New Year Preparations

That's right. A new year is coming soon! The Lunar one!

Year of the Ox will begin on February 12. I love lunar new year. Many people worldwide call it Chinese New Year, but more people celebrate it than just the Chinese, and since moving to Vietnam, I call it Tết, like the locals.

I've hung decorations on the door, and under the garden umbrella. We're slowly putting money into red envelopes (when we get appropriate-sized bills) to hand to the kids we know. And the cleaning has started.

In China I had heard of the tradition to clean house before the holiday. Everything at the start of the new year should be clean and bright, new if needed. One student told me about spending an afternoon shortly before the new year cleaning light fixtures: dusting the lamp or shade, but also removing the bulbs and dusting them. The light in your house should be bright to illuminate... something. 

So after 2021 began, I decided to deep clean one thing a day until Tết. If it's already a day to do laundry or bathrooms or mop, I don't add an extra task, but on days with no chore, I find one. 

So far I've cleaned the lights that I can (most of our ceiling lights are recessed so can't be removed); I've been dusting more regularly and thoroughly; I've done the windows and the glass doors within the house, I've orange-cleaned the kitchen surfaces (this gets done regularly, but not as often). The big chore was the fans.

We live in the tropics, and our house has no ceiling fan. So we have six floor fans spread throughout the rooms. They are in use most of the year. Even when it's cold, you need to keep the air moving so mold spores don't settle, so the fans get filthy. I dust off the tops periodically, but a couple times a year we take them apart, soap down the blades, and take a brush to the inside and outside of the grills. We did that yesterday.

What a difference! If cleaning the lights makes the light brighter, cleaning the fans gives the lights something bright to shine on. Plus, the air is cleaner without blowing dust back into the room.

Language Frustrations

No more AtoZ, no more theme... although I made it through the whole alphabet, so I really need to go get my "survivor" badge soon.

Back to life, back to reality, as we were taught by Soul II Soul.

My language classes did not go away last month, but now I feel an urge to double down a bit. Due to Covid, my Vietnamese classes were switched to Skype. Somehow, not feeling a need to clean the bathrooms and make sure the kitchen is spotless before the teacher arrives makes studying easier. I can focus on the language, and not on the impression I make on my teacher. It's very freeing!

Vietnamese class was this morning, and Mandarin class - also Skype - will be tomorrow morning. {It's usually Mondays, but this weekend was the Labor Day holiday in China, and my teacher cautioned me that she was going out with friends Sunday night and might not be ready for class so early Monday morning. LOL. We understand each other. I told her to have a drink for me.}
 

It's chaos, I tell you! Chaos!

I started Mandarin while living in China. When we moved to Vietnam, I wanted to continue, because if I'm living anywhere in this part of the world, Chinese is not a bad language to know. After we got to Vietnam, we realized a majority of tourism here comes from China. (Korea is second.) Many businesses have their signs in Vietnamese, Chinese, and Korean.

Even so, I don't practice my Mandarin regularly. Sometimes - before Covid - I might have heard some people speaking it in a store or restaurant, but I rarely felt compelled to chime in.

At first, I thought Vietnamese was coming more easily to me than Mandarin. They are both tonal languages, and share some grammatical similarities. Even some words are similar. Think of how many English words are recognizable when you learn them in another Latin-based language?

I now consider Vietnamese the harder of the two. Sure, reading Chinese is torture, because if you don't know "that specific" character, you have no idea what it sounds like or means. Vietnamese at least sort of looks familiar. But that's a fools game. It doesn't sound familiar, and I have realized I have no ear for it at all. Tones or not, Vietnamese has 11 vowels! And I cannot hear them all.

Fortunately, my teacher is very flexible. Lately we've been spending most of the lesson on conversation, and practicing speaking and hearing. We are moving very slowly through the book, but in the end, I think I will be better able to function with what I am learning. Little though it is.

Excuse me now. I have to study Vietnamese.
Or maybe I should review my Mandarin, since I have that class tomorrow.  
Some days, I miss complaining about my high school German classes.

NOT About My Past

I'm just going to blather about nothing for a bit.

I sat at supper alone the other night and wrote out a blog post I thought I'd share yesterday, but then it sounded absurdly personal and maybe a bit whiny, so I never typed it in. Am I the only one who, as an adult, finds out things from the past and gets to feeling resentful? It's not a good feeling, and I'm not proud of it, especially since everyone is just making their choices of what to say and what to do in the moment as we progress through this journey called life, and how can I objectively remember how I behaved back then, and whether or not my actions and attitude caused another person to withhold information that now I wish I'd known?

I'm doing a lot of internal work on ... oh I don't know, call it "mindfulness" - that's part of it - but also on trying to accept people/things/situations without negativity. That needs to include the past. It's not instinctive for me.

[I'm not talking about supressed trauma. That's different. Just tiny things that if you'd known then, maybe you would be different now? Maybe would have helped?]

But the thoughts I wrote down the other night are a step backward, so here I am sharing inanities!

How I write.

I sent my novel to a few Beta-readers last weekend, so I've been taking a week off from writing or editing. Maybe I'm drifting a bit.

I started looking up this ancient Chinese poet: Du Fu (Also translated as Tu Fu. I know, you were confused by the "D".) I took a picture of the full moon the other night, so the first poem I looked up was called "Moonlit Night". Not at all related to my picture, but here they both are:

It was a full moon, and I was walking home from supper through the rice paddies. Heaven.

The text of "Moonlit Night" as translated by the first website I clicked on:

The moon shines in Fuzhou tonight,
In her chamber, she watches alone.
I pity my distant boy and girl-
They don't know why she thinks of Chang'an.
Her cloud-like hair is sweet with mist,
Her jade arms cold in the clear moonlight.
When shall we lean in the empty window,
Together in brightness, and tears dried up?

I'm no poet, and yes, it's a translation, but even so I feel that I need to take a course in Chinese poetry if I'm ever to understand what the heck it means! 😂

Any insight from any poetry lovers? Maybe I just need to read more of this Ancient Chinese Dude, to get into his head. The last ancient poetry I read was Beowulf. I loved that one, but epic poems are easier I think, because they tell a story.

See? I told you I'd blather about nothing. What nothing is new with you?
 

The Mental Block is Real

Today, Brett was contacted by someone in China. He used to judge national English language competitions there. Several. The big one is coming up again.  It's about every six months. Last time the organizer (or foreigner liaison) contacted him, we had already moved to Vietnam and he said so. He deleted her from his contacts.

She sent a friend request today and he accepted and she asked if he could judge again. 

Brett: I have moved to Vietnam. I no longer live in China and cannot judge this competition.
Liaison: When will you be back?
Brett: I won't. I have moved here permanently.
Liaison: Oh. You will never be coming back to China?
Brett. No.

People in China truly do not know how hard they have it. They think the entire world deals with things the way they do, or maybe - more probably - they think they have it good. They don't realize how much EASIER life could be. I wrote about this before, here. 

This must be the 3rd or 4th time different people connected to our life in Beijing have approached us inquiring when we'd move back. NEVER! They truly seem baffled that, having experienced China, we would prefer a different country. Especially because we didn't return to our home country. People do that all the time but we didn't. We moved on. To a different, smaller, ALSO Communist country. 

They don't get it.

The mental block is real.
"You were in China, you saw how amazingly phenomenal we are and moved... there? When will you come back?"

They understand moving from the Beijing pollution. But we could have just moved to a different city within China if we only wanted to avoid pollution. The fact that the bureaucracy there makes life 80% more difficult than it has to be doesn't even dawn on them.

Doesn't everyone have to wait in line ALL DAY at the embassy to try to apply for a visa to leave the country?

Doesn't everyone have to submit permit requests at three different offices before getting the permit you want? 

We have friends in China - mixed race, one Chinese partner - who applied for a passport for their preschool-aged son LAST FALL and haven't received it yet. Before we, as American citizens, moved from the US, our passports took about a month. The visa to go to China was a nightmare.

They don't get it. 
I don't have a question or a proposition here, just venting. Sorry about that.

On The Move. Again.

I don't even know where to begin. My beloved husband made me sit on this move for about 3 months, so there is A LOT that has been heretofore unsaid, which is just BURSTING to get out of my brain! 


So the BIG REVEAL: We are moving to Vietnam!
Da Nang, specifically. We just returned to Beijing from 4 days there, finding an apartment, moving in whatever we could take with us, and getting a little acclimated. I'm in love. It smells like home. I am amazed to find that I don't mind the tropical heat. As long as you don't make me dress a certain way, I can make the heat and humidity work.  (My hair is actually better there.)

We didn't even want to come back to Beijing this time. Why did we? We had planned two trips so we could establish an address the first time and maybe ship things the second time. Although we got rid of a lot of things before moving to Beijing and we're not big spenders, we have a few extra mementos to keep, and I'd like to bring certain housewares. They are things that might be bought anywhere, but it's so difficult to RE-start 100% from scratch with every move. (Especially when moving means a new country and having to actually FIND all the places to buy the housewares you like.) Plus tickets were cheap, so it seemed reasonable.

I know this is short, but I've been so busy packing all day, I can't sift through my pictures. Writing this post is such a relief to me, you have no idea. I'll post pictures tomorrow or as soon as I can. Ask any questions you want. I'll be fleshing things out in the next few weeks.

Red Tape

Here's my joke: 
They call it "red-tape" because the Communists do it the best. 

...or the most. 

I'm not good at jokes. 

Living in a communist country has really introduced me to a depth of layers of bureaucratic B.S. that I would never have believed existed.

We spent more than 2 hours this afternoon at our local police station to get a document that it turns out none of the staff there knew how to do!

TWO HOURS! We never did get the document. Brett was livid. Now we have to go back tomorrow armed with a Chinese-speaking friend, and another friend's phone number, who knows people higher up at this office and can perhaps get something done.

When you move to China, you have to register with your local police bureau - very local, like just a few blocks - and they will issue a residency permit. If we stay anywhere else we are to register there until we go home. Staying at a hotel is not a problem, because most hotels have an officer who handles this kind of thing.

We recently read that when you move from your district, you should go to that same office to get a - well, basically a criminal background check. An official letter that says that you haven't committed any crimes while living here. That is all we were trying to get. We had the name of the document in English and Chinese to show to the clerk. I noticed that she seemed somewhat baffled, but they collected our passports and started working. 

Other people came and went, and 2 hours later we were called up to get ... new residency permits! Which we didn't need because ours are still valid. 

This is a very Chinese thing. They don't want to admit they can't do something so they will do what they can. Even if it is the wrong thing and wastes your afternoon for a pointless new piece of paper.

I love traveling. I love living in different countries. I think visiting is great, but by actually residing in a new culture, you really learn about them and yourself.

But seriously, people.

Reality Check

During these challenges, I tend to get lost in the blogosphere, so this reality check is for me, but will hopefully serve as a reminder for others of you who are equally foggy-headed!

I've been writing Life Wisdom this month, such as it is, but not every part of life is wise. Yes, I meditate every day, do yoga, read my Bible, tell my husband I love him, and I believe that for my life these are wise things to do. But reality is also mundane. Or chaotic. Or overwhelming.

For me, this is reality:

As I write this, I am sitting at a small desk in our small apartment in Beijing, China. The window by my desk looks out from 11 stories up, over the main entrance to our building, where several bikes and motorbikes are parked. If I stand up and look down, I can see a few of the older residents sitting on benches. There is a street with some small shops and a hotel, many trees, and beyond the trees, other tall buildings. Through them, I can see how very smoggy it is today. It doesn't look smoggy if you just look below. 

As I write this, Doctor Zhivago is playing on the TV. This is one of those movies that I know well enough that it's not distracting to me, but if I take a break from writing, I enjoy it. It's just so beautiful! This movie makes winter look pretty. I don't only watch old classics, though: yesterday was Guardians of the Galaxy. Do you write with any noise around you, or do you need silence?

Reality is: I struggle with depression. It comes out of nowhere and goes away after a while. Sometimes I can recognize it coming - if I don't want to sing along to my music, if I don't want to leave the house, these are road signs that I need to take care of my internal self.

Reality is: We are preparing to move again. We started looking at apartments during the winter, postponed it due to major holidays impacting our finances, and when we re-commenced looking, had completely different goals. We do not have an apartment lined up yet, but the whole house has to be packed, so that occupies much of my mind.

Reality often gets in the way of being calm, centered, and wise in all moments of life, don't you think? How are you staying grounded in the real world during this challenge?

(If you're visiting from A to Z, please include the name of your blog as it is on the Master List so I can return the favor!)

Qin Dynasty

Bear with me. This one requires a bit of an intro.

Where I live. Why I learn Mandarin.

In learning Mandarin, the first thing they teach is how to read pinyin, which is the way they spell out character pronunciations using Latin letters. But most of them aren't "right" for an English speaker! I'm lucky to have a linguist for a husband, who reminded me early on that a lot of languages utilizing the Latin alphabet pronounce things their own way. In German, J has a Y sound. In Spanish, J is more like H.

In Chinese pinyin, Q is sort of like ch, but with a bit of a TS to it.

The Qin Dynasty was the first unified dynasty, and maybe that's why we call this country China now? I'm not trying to do research on this right now, although I would be very interested to study Chinese history.

I'm not really writing about the Qin Dynasty, but the use of "Q" in pinyin is part of my everyday life. I've had to open my mind to the fact that pronunciation of ANY symbol - Latin or otherwise - is arbitrary. Since this culture calls Q "ch", that is the correct pronunciation ... here. 

I go to Visual Mandarin (dot-com) to look up stroke order when practicing my characters.

There are a LOT of Q words. Except they aren't Q words. They are distinct characters that may have a meaning alone, but also have several meanings when coupled with other characters. It's a paradigm shift. 

Which brings me around to a sort of vague connection to Life Wisdom: If something as simple as letters can be so very different from a different perspective in a different culture, what else do we look at as black and white that may be completely different from a different view? Have you ever had a basic premise contradicted in your life?

(If you're visiting from A to Z, please include the name of your blog as it is on the Master List so I can return the favor!)

Why Won't You Come See Me???

Got into a conversation recently about people who say they'll visit and then don't, and people who were your closest friends "back home" but when you move overseas you never see them again.

This is an expat issue. Would it be nice to see old friends? Of course. But I get it. It's expensive. And even for the friends who could afford it, or who love you enough that they might save up for it... it's not always convenient. 

Travel is inconvenient.
Packing for a trip is a pain.
Airports are crowded, and not always comfortable.
There may not be a free charging station.
Airport food is expensive and often unhealthy.
Unknown food in a foreign country is a risk!

Travel is not for everyone. 
Travel outside your home country is definitely not for everyone. 

Personally, I get a little panicked before any social event. Maybe some people get that way before they travel. 

I know a lot of my American friends who just don't think travel is safe. (not picking on Americans, but any of my friends of other nationalities are already travelers, so...)  
Flip-side: Any time I've lived in another country, they think America is unsafe! Literally. I heard that in Sri Lanka and India in the 80s, and hear it here on a regular basis. 
Pick your safe.

Even of my friends who I think would *pipe-dream* like to visit, how many have a passport? A passport card to travel within North America, maybe, but few leave the country. So if they actually made up their minds to come, they'd have to shell out about $100 for a passport before even looking at tickets. And they'd have to do that months before booking tickets, too, so it's a long-term commitment!


Do I have friends who could do it? Sure. But let's consider priorities:
Unless travel is a priority for you and your family, you aren't going to make this trip. Maybe the comfort of the known is where you are at your best. Even friends who take big trips annually often make the same trip - comfort of the known.

Maybe getting the kids to their favorite summer camp is a bigger deal than showing them the wider world. I don't get that, but I won't judge. I'm not a parent.
 
For years, I lived on the East Coast while my family lived in the Midwest. My vacation time was usually spent visiting them. America is a big country. For families that are spread out, visiting a friend in a far-off land just isn't a priority.

Besides, America is big. REALLY BIG! Unless you live on the west coast, flying to China is a LLOOOONNNNGggg trip. It's actually really annoying, to be honest. You have to have a major sense of adventure to do this.

My brother's family lived in Turkey for 7 years. For 7 years, I intended to visit, but couldn't afford it, couldn't afford it, couldn't find the time... and I only got there weeks before they moved back to the US! There is a lot that goes into international travel, and I will not ever begrudge my friends who "intend" to visit but can't make it happen.

Life is hard.
Travel is good, but not easy.
Pick your hard.

Ghosts of Christmas Past

Facebook keeps reminding of what I was doing this time in past years - prepping and baking fruitcakes, shoveling out my car, gift-wrapping, setting up nativities, writing letters - these are my ghosts of Christmas Past, but also, of Christmas Future.

We haven't had an oven since moving here, which means no baking for last Christmas or this Christmas, but if we're still here next year, we will be in a better apartment, and I *will* have an oven! And maybe some surface space that isn't in active use, where I can place my one nativity that I brought back from storage in August. And maybe I'll find actual Christmas cards, now that we've figured out the postal system. Here's to Christmas Future!

Last year I saw Christmas decorations for sale in a couple places, so I thought I'd put a string of lights in our enclosed balcony, but when I shopped for them, they weren't around yet, and I haven't been back, so it's a no go. Just as well, because we have a lead on a good apartment that we might be moving into early in the new year - who wants to take down decorations in addition to a move?! But next year I'll do some lights.

Today I am home with a fever. I don't know why. I got excessively cold two days ago, and my body hasn't figured out how to regulate my temperature since then. Whatever. It'll sort itself out.

Before I opened my computer to start work this morning, I reached out to my sister with a message, and to my best friend back home, just saying hi and wishing well. I guess it's a kind of Christmas spirit homesickness. I'm not sad, but just needed the contact. Weird, huh.

My ghosts are messing with me. 

{I wanted to drop some pictures in here, but trying to find the right past Christmas pics is tiring. I need a rest!}

Time Travel is Real

For years, I've crossed distances to "do coffee" or "do lunch" or "take a walk with" friends by phone. It's a habit that I figured could help me cross time as well as distance.

Friend: Hey! I want to hear more about that thing you posted. How about we "do coffee", 9am my time tomorrow morning? I'll have coffee, you can have wine!
Me: That's perfect! Since your time changed, I think I'm 13 hours ahead, so that's... 8pm for me. Easy enough. See you then!

The next morning, on waking up:

10pm previous night...
*missed call"

Friend: Okay, I've tried calling, so I'm going sit by my computer and work on some stuff, and you just call me when you're ready.

Me: OH CRAP! When you said "tomorrow" I didn't think of the fact that your "tomorrow" is my "today"! I realized after we set the time, that it would be 10pm my time, not 8pm, and I was so happy that I realized it, that I forgot to think about the date! When can we reschedule coffee?

Friend: LOL. I get it. How about MY Friday morning. I'll be driving, so I can focus on our conversation.

*I check my planner* 

Me: Oh good grief. Friday is the day I had marked for our call, even though I was planning for Thursday and it should have been Wednesday! Apparently I can't figure out time. Talk to you Friday morning, your time! Friday NIGHT, my time, LOL.
Friend: Perfect.

*After putting it in my phone calendar*

Me: I'm such a mess! I had the first time in my phone set for the correct night, but 8pm, which was my first - WRONG - guess about the time! I think I'm finally set for YOUR Friday morning. I really can't wait to give you all the details.

*Friday morning*

Me: It's my Friday morning, which means your Thursday night, right? So we'll talk when you wake up! I'm on it!
Friend: Bad news. Crisis at work, so I won't be free to call, and actually have a meeting at 7am tomorrow morning. Sorry!
Me: I'm SO SAD that I messed up our first scheduled time! Please let me know as soon as you have an idea when you can talk. 

Conclusion: I suck at time travel.

How I Lost my Resting Bi*** Face

For the sake of not wearing out my asterisk key, I will refer to  "Resting Bi*** Face"  as "RBF". We all on the same page? Good.

Like many others, I seem to have a natural RBF. No one has ever called me out on it, and it wasn't an issue I really noticed when we lived in the States. ...Well, there was that one time, when I was getting a new drivers license, and thought I would thwart the DMV's "No smile" rule by just lifting the corners of my mouth a little. I could feel the slight smile on my face. When I got the license? No smile. At all. It felt like I was gently smiling, but the smile didn't show.

I have an RBF.

When we moved to Beijing, I started using public transportation with tens of thousands of others each day. (I would estimate that I see at least 50,000 individuals daily, simply through taking the subway.) I was struck by how downtrodden everyone looked! No smiles, unless two people were actively engaged in an amusing conversation. everyone looked sad, mad, or just beaten down by life! 
 

This is MY personal photo - not stock photo from online!

Perhaps they are just reserved. I have noticed that my Chinese friends are less emotional. Less "demonstrably" emotional, at least. But it's daunting, and can get into your head to be surrounded by a perceived negativity.

At any rate, I made a decision to smile when I am out in public. Just to look friendly - especially since I am already head and shoulders taller than most, and an RBF could make me even more intimidating. I want people to feel okay to answer if I ask a question, or to just smile back! 

I try to make sure the smile gets into my eyes, if I make eye contact. Might as well be friendly!

Occasionally it works and I get a smile in return. Most often from kids - they are a great ice-breaker, aren't they? But at the very least, ensuring that I have a smile on my face helps me to observe the world through a more positive lens. 

The More Things Change, the More They Stay The Same.

First of all, Chinese do holidays differently (big surprise). For some holidays, schools take off the Monday. Or Tuesday. Or both, but they will make up the missed day - or at least one of the missed days - on the previous Saturday. Why even take the Monday, am I right?

But other holidays are a huge break. We are winding down National Day holiday, which is October 1st, but the whole country takes off the 1st to 7th. We stayed in Beijing last year, and even the grocery store was closed for 3 days.



This year, we were invited to accompany friends to Qingdao on the Yellow Sea coast. Nice! 

We walked the shore the night we arrived.

(Also, home to Tsingtao beer, the Budweiser of China. Double Nice!)

Tsingtao brewery. Not very Chinese-looking? Germans started the brewery in 1903!

Turns out, there was a bit of an agenda. Yes, vacation at the coast, but our friends run a school in Beijing, and a former student's family had moved down to the area, and the mother is trying to get this school to open a branch down there. Brett would be a prime candidate to manage that location while our friend oversees operations from Beijing.

Buying crabs in Jimo

So we enjoyed the beach and the beer, lots of seafood, and a FANTASTIC hotel, then shmoozed with this woman of influence and looked at the potential site for the new school. 

In short, we may be moving within the year. That's as much as I can wrap my head around at this point. There are so many details to be worked out, and I've worked with this school through potential franchise situations before - witnessing them fall flat for various reasons. 

8 hrs by car, but a bullet train would  be 4-ish.

IF it actually even happens, the timeline could be anything, but I have an agreement to continue what I'm doing into April of 2019, so for a while my time would be split between the 2 locations. Fortunately, there's a bullet train between the two cities. I could get very familiar with travel by the Chinese method!

Or it could be nothing. 
This could all be pie in the sky.
I have let it go. It only concerns me insofar as my beloved husband may want to talk things out in advance. 

For my part? Life is the same.

It was a nice vacation, though. Check it out!

Dinner at Tsingtao Beer Garden, the first night.

The following day, Brett and I split from the pack and their kids.

I got to feel the sand between my toes once again. >sigh<

Nothing better than the sound of the waves.

A sculpture of getting a tattoo!

The goods sold by the "board"walk are different here.

If we move, it would be to here... in the outskirts, a "growing" area.

The Difference a Year Makes

Happy Anniversary to me! 

We have officially been living in China for one year, as of yesterday. 

I meant to post yesterday, but I spent the day in a recording studio 2 hours away, making videos for an online class teaching rhymes and crafts to little kids - making English fun and practical, and not just textbook knowledge. It's a pretty sweet gig; I won't lie. What a difference a year makes!

My view from the makeup room

I've learned to look at these projects from a totally new perspective:

I'm just the on-air talent.
I'm the trained monkey.

I have little say in the script or the crafts, except for the fact that I'm the one doing them. But it was kind of fun stepping back from my typical helpful "let me get that" attitude. You do your thing. I'll do mine.

No more teaching for me, not even drama. I wrote a Christmas play for a private facility, but the jury is out on how involved I'll be with that. What a difference a year makes.

Mandarin homework

We are learning the language - almost 200 characters so far, plus words made up of them, plus spoken words and sentences that we haven't learned characters for yet. Well, we've been taught that many, but how many I actually know is debatable. Anyway, it's a start.

We are stable enough to order in food and pay for it. I am looking to Ikea for ways to increase our limited amount of space in the apartment.

We're definitely in a better place than when we first arrived, and it is fall again: The Golden Season in Beijing. That means all the giant-sized fruits that were available when we arrived are coming back.

Life is just life now. We know where to find things we need, and if we are freezing before the heat gets turned on in November (like last year) we can at least afford to buy another blanket!

Things are still often unpredictable. We found a great place for reflexology foot massages, but half the time I go there, they are closed! I cannot figure out their hours. And the way holidays work here throws Brett off almost monthly.

On the whole, things are better than a year ago. Still, for me, the jury is out on this as a potential long-term home. 

Starting Over

Okay, I'll try this again. I can't seem to get my thoughts in order, but the longer I postpone writing, the worse it'll be.

We returned from the States and launched into Mandarin

classes. Which is fun, but requires study time outside the 6 hours per week that we're in class. Also, the last two weeks I worked double hours to make up for the 2 weeks I was gone. I have slept and slept on the weekends.

When we moved overseas when I was a kid, the mission group we were with had established timelines: Live in a country for 3 years, then return for a 3 month furlough. That was the timeline we followed. I never thought about it until this trip to the US after just 10 months. I now understand the wisdom of that plan.

Do you know how easy life is in the States? You can go anywhere you want to, without checking in with people. 

Such wide open spaces!

You can buy... SO much. I wanted to record one of our shopping trips to Walmart to share with my Chinese friends here, but decided that might be insensitive, or send a message of greed and materialism.

Seriously - popcorn!


And the heaven that is a bottomless cup of coffee...



My first thought, as we left the Vancouver airport and meandered that city, was, "Man, these Canadians are tall!" Of course, they're no taller on average than Americans. It was just the culture shock of not feeling like a giant!

We had to take the trip when we did. We had given ourselves one year to keep things in storage, with the goal that after a year we would know better what we still might need. So we had to clean out the storage unit, and really put a push out to sell my car. Due to school vacation times, our "one year" became 10 months, so that we could be back in time for school to start.

We cleared out the storage unit - with great success! And succeeded in selling my car. Yay! But on the whole I think the trip was premature. Now I'm back almost to the beginning of trying to consider Beijing home. Not that I want to go back to the States. It's easier, yes, but a LOT more expensive. I speak the language there, but I'm learning this one. 

I don't really know what my problem is. I guess, on the whole, I'll never really be "happy" anywhere, so I just wish I lived in a location that I liked better, so the "unhappy" could be a little comfortable.

I'll be more positive when I write again. I promise. I just need to re-settle a bit.