Three weeks ago I moved to China. Two weeks ago I visited Tibet. Now I'm visiting India. I've been posting some things on Facebook because it is quicker, more universal-reaching, and simpler than "keeping up a blog", but I also feel like it is a bit more fleeting, for all that. I don't like constantly posting new links for my blog posts, and I get the feeling that most people don't really care about the long versions of my stories. So I'm going to try something new. I'm going to post brief things on facebook and either copy and paste them on my blog or expand them into larger blog posts, as I see fit. I'm not going to worry about integrating pictures into my blog posts anymore, since google photo is soooo much easier. I'll post google photo album links where needed. This may alter completely later on, but lets see how it works.
First order of business? Taking all the long fb posts and copying them here:
Sept 27th
Just wrapping up day two of China times :) I'm happy. Also tired. Also I build a bookshelf today. And watched the presidential debates. And I got my security briefing at the consulate, my metro card, my registration at our housing complex... Oh, and I think I accidentally bought a bitter melon yesterday. Eric Dowdle, you will have to tell me how to cook it (if there is a way to make it more better than bitter??). Joel refuses to have any part in my culinary experimentation.. but the mango flavored potato chips were tasty! He's totally missing out.
Sept 28th
Day 3 of China: my bags are all unpacked, finally. Its a very unfortunate thing that I can't open the windows for fresh air
:( apparently the Chinese all do, but we have four air purifiers as it is and I start coughing if I'm outside for too long. the air conditioning is driving me nuts; now its a little too cold, now its a little too hot... maintenance ppl came in and hung something on the wall for me. it took them an hour. not sure why. i'm going to apply for a job at the consulate--once I start the process of getting cleared, I can sign up for private Chinese tutoring! I have all my chinese textbooks with me, but I haven't opened them at all... I think it is because, while Chinese is a foreign country, being married is the more foreign place and it is taking mental priority. but I WILL learn chinese! I must. this place is too different, there would be too much of a gap between me and the rest of this world, to not be able to communicate. as it is, i feel like i'm in a bubble and only French words come to mind (most recent other language studied). well, that's my brain space in a nutshell. also, i still haven't taken any pictures. i'm not thinking that way yet. tah tah! xx
Sept 29th
Day 4: today my new friends came to visit (we've seen each other every day) and we went swimming, watched Despicable Me 2, and went grocery shopping. also the 4 year old really wanted to try on my lipsticks, so we did. now i've made dinner way too early; i wanted to give myself time to re-acclimate to the (stupid) induction stove top and turns out i figured it out right quick! now i'm waiting for Joel to get home, practically fainting with hunger... maybe i'll read this cooking magazine... oh! last night we found some feral kittens at the playground and they were adorable!! after some discussion, Joel convinced me that we shouldn't adopt one (or both). well, more like he put his foot down about it.. but when we checked on them later, they were gone, so maybe their mommy got them back, which is the happiest ending to the story. and gradually this apartment is starting to feel like home. part of it is puttering around. part of it is picking things up and putting them back down, to get the feeling of complicity in how things are. part of it is putting removable hooks on the wall by the stove to hold the spoons and spatulas. yup, it's definitely feeling cozy tonight.
Sept 30th
DAY 5: today my friends came over again and we experimented making cookies in my oven-cum-microwave. there were weevils in the flour, but i worked around them. and the cookies worked! its amazing! next oven test: roasting. after that i got out lots o' cash to pay to this guy who runs a tour company who are taking me and Joel to the permitted-for-diplomats part of Tibet tomorrow!!! We *were* going to be in India on Sunday, but Joel's Indian visa was only granted yesterday, and he won't get it in hand until next week (familiar, eh?), so we'll be in Tibet instead. *grinning* i wore my Target sandals today and they rubbed my skin unhappy :( i can't figure out how chinese ladies wear such fancy clothes all the time. okay, any ladies. but chinese ladies have such interesting fashion... i want to do a street clothes photo shoot one day. and they are all so slim and petite. but i'm just going to have to look vaguely frumpy in my practical shoes. strange, how i want to look cool but i draw the line at pain in my feet.. the evening was wrapped up with watching last week's women's conference with the ladies from church. they were all excited to finally meet me :) and now, i just changed my name on fb and put that i'm married to Joel. now that we are together, it actually feels real :) goodnight.
Oct 1st
Day 6!! Early early!! I just had a terrible nightmare-dream about organizing another wedding reception. The cake was week-old whopper jrs and everyone drifted away from the party before I could hike them out to the dessert area.. so stressful.. 
😰 also I think I'm going to have to put my maiden name back in the middle of my fb name, but fb wouldn't let me type it with the correct capitalizations and spaces!! The injustice!! 
😫 Anyway, we are up so early bc Tibet today!! And I will be out of range for fb but will show you all my pictures when I get back 
😁 Well, the interesting/super beautiful ones at least. Oh man, I can't tell if I'm experiencing a lingering cold or if I am allergic to something in China 
😪I wonder where I can get local Chinese honey.
😰 also I think I'm going to have to put my maiden name back in the middle of my fb name, but fb wouldn't let me type it with the correct capitalizations and spaces!! The injustice!! 😫 Anyway, we are up so early bc Tibet today!! And I will be out of range for fb but will show you all my pictures when I get back 😁 Well, the interesting/super beautiful ones at least. Oh man, I can't tell if I'm experiencing a lingering cold or if I am allergic to something in China 😪I wonder where I can get local Chinese honey.
Oct 7th
Day Whatever It Is. Day...12! Wow, twelve whole days! Today I am rewriting my resume to apply for a job at the consulate. It is hard work, since I'm basically changing careers (if this future of temporary jobs might be called a career) and my museums career had only barely become real. I've got to merge Museum Experience and Child Care Experience into some skills that a Security Interviewer Person (not real job title) would need... After the resume, I get to write a Cover Letter, yay!! sigh. I can't complain; this project gives me something concrete to work on and achieve. I'm in the process of reinventing myself, you see. I have some sewing projects with me, I have some books, but I also want to go out and take full advantage of living in a foreign place. Also, real life has never consisted of sewing and reading and sight-seeing to my heart's content. I need something to be expected of me. Maybe if I turn sewing into a business. Maybe if I find some tutoring to do. Maybe if I get this consulate job. Maybe learning Chinese will give me structure. I'm starting to research meal plans for dinner, too. (Cooking dinner gives structure!) I've never had to cook for someone other than myself every night and I suspect that Joel will get bored of my pasta diet before long. I am lucky and happy to be here. I like new things. I also like responsibility and productivity. I'll figure it out. Right now, I think I'll heat up a pizza slice for lunch. and maybe some pasta. Mmm..
Oct 8th
Day 13 was spent mostly watching Stranger Things and I have no regrets, though you might since that means this post will be boring. We ate American food brunch at an Irish pub near the consulate. It was pretty much deserted and it still took forever to get me my biscuits and gravy. We played a game of pool and Joel only *narrowly* won. Then I picked food off of Joel's plate o' pancakes and was hardly hungry at all when my breakfast finally came. Shame. We took a taxi home, and have I mentioned how the Chinese drive? Basically it is every man for himself. There are some rules, like 'drive on the right', and 'pedestrians have right of way', BUT rules are obviously made to be broken. Every driver must assume that every other driver is a wild card. It's nuts! I went shopping and found some weird Oreos. China is THE place for strange flavor combinations. These Oreos, for example, were raspberry/blueberry and peach/white grape. The first weren't bad, but the latter tasted chemical. After heating up dinner, I shattered a glass tray in the oven when I tried to close the door and it was still sticking out. Oops. Weekends are awesome bc Joel is home to snuggle with ALL DAY! Plus tomorrow is our conference Sunday, and then Joel and I must pack for our next adventure; we are off to Mumbai on Monday!!
Oct 11th
Oct 12th
I ventured forth alone today. Forth from the safety and air conditioning of our hotel and into the crazy of what they call the "suburbs" of Mumbai. Ps, we are in India now. In preparation for this trip, I've gotten all kinds of warnings about wandering in Mumbai by myself (solo woman), so my nerves were all warmed up. I've also read that where we are at, there isn't much to "see". But I needed some things from the store (makeup remover for me, hair gel and deodorant for Joel), and I wanted to stop by The Yoga Institute for information on classes. It was just a twenty minute walk with a brief detour, so I figured I'd be fine. I sketched out a quick map to follow (the data on this new sim card hasn't kicked in yet), I packed some bottled water, and I went. First of all, I don't care if they call this a suburb, it ain't nothing like no suburbs I've ever seen at home. (Duh.) 1. aren't suburbs where people life and commute to work in the main city? These people weren't commuters. They were all still here! 2. there are no street signs. Its a good thing I drew a map and didn't just write down a street list. 3. no one walks on the crappy sidewalks, everyone walks in the street and all the cars and scooters honk to warn ppl they are coming. 4. as far as I can tell, the population of India is 97.8% men, since I only saw a woman, like, ten times. Three of those were scaling and filleting fish on the sidewalk. and 5. If Chinese traffic is bad, it was just a warm-up for Indian traffic. Walking across the street was like playing Frogger. And just the sum chaos on the street was immense. The sense of being watched, of being noticed, of standing out was very strong. Taking a wrong turn meant turning around which meant looking vulnerable, so I tried my best to forge ahead even when I wasn't sure. I needed to not look like a noob. I needed to have a blank face: not friendly, but not judgmental; not happy but not disgusted. I'm not sure how well I did that. I maneuvered through some tough spots and had been walking a while when I started to get nervous that I had missed a turn or had walked too far when I finally saw a sign for yoga and found this peaceful green garden with all the information for yoga classes and even a bathroom to pee in. As I sat and wrote and sketched and regrouped, I realized that my return trip would be very different. Knowing where I am going is more than half the battle. Suddenly the men on the street were part of the pedestrian environment and not primarily menacing threats. The dirty crazy shop fronts could be looked at in curiosity rather than rushed past. The streets themselves were my co-conspirators, my slowly unfolding red carpet home, instead of my labyrinth. All in all, I felt much better. Turns out that there is PLENTY to see in this so-called suburb. Not temples or museums or anything, but people and clothing and traffic patterns and stray dogs and weird adverts and flower garlands and all those fish-monger women. And I'm heading out for a yoga class in the morning!
Oct 13th
so last night I got all congested. and then I got all achy. and then I slept terribly. Joel and I read the symptoms of Dengue fever, because I got a mosquito bite on Tuesday and I was nervous, but there's an incubation period of six days or so, so that's not it. Here's the thing, though. When I first got to Chengdu three weeks ago I started sneezing and sniffling. When we stayed in Tibet last week I had to take nyquil to sleep and dayquil to hike. And now my sinuses are filling up again! I don't usually get sick, so I think its the change of climate, change of recycled air, change of altitude, change of food. I'm going to stay in bed this morning. Read some Ramayana. Watch some food TV. Meet Joel for lunch. Maybe go visit a nearby temple in the afternoon. Take it easy. I really should've brought my 'quils on this trip..
Have you ever heard of Beyond The Beautiful Forevers? Its a journalistic book written about a slum in Mumbai called Annawadi. I haven't read it. Yet. One denizen described the slum and its surroundings: "Everything around is roses. And we are the shit in between." The tiny slum is ringed by the new international airport and expensive hotels. I just realized that I am staying in one of those rosy, expensive hotels. Maybe a neighborhood south or so, but still. That's a weird thing.
I also found out today that there is a word for the row of slapdash tarp lean-tos and the families that inhabit them that I passed on my walk yesterday; pavement-dwellers. There's a Wikipedia article on them. About the Mumbai ones in particular.
(I think this is the closest I've been to famous poverty. <- I'm not sure how I feel about that sentence. Or about this post as a whole.)
I also found out today that there is a word for the row of slapdash tarp lean-tos and the families that inhabit them that I passed on my walk yesterday; pavement-dwellers. There's a Wikipedia article on them. About the Mumbai ones in particular.
(I think this is the closest I've been to famous poverty. <- I'm not sure how I feel about that sentence. Or about this post as a whole.)
Oct 14th
FEELING BETTER! I went to yoga today. At first I was nervous to walk again bc it was a different time of day than last time and who knows what the pedestrian demographic will be! Well, the pedestrian demographic at 7:45 am is lots of little uniformed school girls walking themselves to school. I felt a lot better to be in that crowd. Soon I'll be confident at all times and in all places. Because I haven't done a ton of yoga before and I don't speak hindi, one of the teachers gave me a private lesson. The class that I looked in on was full of Indian women, most of them dressed in the Indian female "three piece suit" of cotton pants, tunic, shawl. No spandex. My teacher was in jeans. Turns out this kind of yoga is the super peaceful kind that focuses on breathing and light stretches. I think I actually sweat the least during that hour of yoga than at any other time during the day, including while sitting in air conditioning. I also got a ton of bug bites on my arms during class. Did I mention that its Dengue Fever season? I'm going to invest in some bug spray. After class I went to the ISKCON temple, which is a really beautiful building of white marble designed by a Dutchman (yay, Dutch people!!). I got approached by an Indian family to take a picture with them. They even tried to get me to hold their baby for a picture, but she (the baby) wasn't having it. She didn't even smile at me, not one little bit! A monk in orange t-shirt and robes approached me as I was wandering around and reading signs. He told me about Hare Krishna, the god, and how he has revealed Eternal Truth and Real Yoga and other spiritual things to various spiritual leaders over the years, including His Divine Grace Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, (have you tried actually pronouncing that or did you skim over it?), who founded the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in New York in the 1960's. There is a tiny plant in the courtyard that is very special somehow (it was a 'she' and sometimes they worship her) and when the monks make food for the idol of Hare Krishna they always have to include a leaf from this tree, or Krishna won't accept it. Seeing as how they cook meals for him every day, and this plant was small and not stripped bare, I have my suspicions about the truth of that claim. Then this monk gave me a tour through His Divine Grace's quarters, now turned into a museum. Then he tried to sell me some books. I didn't want any. But I thanked him anyway. Now, after delicious lunch at the consulate, I think I am going to sit in the steam room and then finish watching Ghandi.
Now you are all caught up! Onward!
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