Hello friends and family! I realize I have not posted an entry to the blog in quite some time. Part of the reason is that I was having so much trouble posting the Cambodia pictures and several time-consuming entries just crashed into cyber oblivion, so I became discouraged. Then there was the inevitable getting back to daily life, work, school post-vacation. And that is where this blog begins...
I realize as I go about daily life here in Shanghai that things I once found odd and different are now becoming quite routine observances. Walking to the coffee shop one morning, I pass the city workers, women who spend their day pushing around wheelbarrows and wastebins with their completely homemade straw brooms cleaning up the streets. The sit against a wall or fence on the corner in the morning, before they must begin their workday. It is very cold, so they have many layers of clothing underneath their kelly green 'scrubs' - cloth lined hats on their heads, with dirty dish towels covering them and clipped beneath their chin (their version of ear muffs).
I cross the street and a man is turning around zipping up his pants and I am not shocked or uncomfortable. Because for men here, the world is their toilet. And they do not necessarily find their way to the corner of the building or in the bush, they just hop out of the car/taxi and stand in the middle of the sidewalk and pee. So now, whenever I see a man standing still outside with his back to me, I assume that is what he is doing.
The Chinese are very used to wearing layers, lots of them. In Carrefour at this time of year there are enormous amounts of long underwear for sale. This is because heat is a luxury. Our home, like most homes here, have floor heating. So we have these cold tile floors that are toasty warm, but not in every room. The heated floors are in the living room/dining room/bathrooms and halls. The bedrooms however have this fake wooden flooring and that is not heated, so there are these radiators in those rooms that you can turn on and adjust. All the windows/doors are very drafty - so it makes for some really inconsistent heat (which, I might add, we still haven't figured out how to reliably turn on). Oh yeah, and the kitchen? No heat at all. Its kind of like walking out to your garage to make breakfast in the morning. Also, they don't heat the stores here - most of them. The 'higher end' stores, yes. But the grocery store? The movie store? The hallways and walkways of the malls? The school halls ? None of those are heated. The kids go from warm classroom, to icy hallway, all day long. Crazy.
Another funny sight, that has become the norm, is the Expat Family Car. Cars and drivers are leased through various companies here, but they all have the same car. When we first arrived they were ALL silver. In the past few months there have been more and more navy cars and a few white as the fleet is being replaced. Here is what they look like:
That's in front of the clubhouse, where the busses pick up and drop off the kids.
You can see why its important to know your license plate number! That's how you find your car/driver. We are very lucky because our driver has the eagle eye. It seems that whether I have been gone 5 minutes or 2 hours, the moment I walk out the door he calls my name and waves me over. Always looking out for us!!
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