We have been here too long...

Today it was finally spring weather and I decided we need to get out of the house more. We went to Qibao with our friend Laurene. It is a little neighborhood of Shanghai that is sort of a tourist trap. I have been there twice before. It has traditional Chinese architecture and a very dirty river. You can take a boat ride for 10 rmb a person, under $2, on said dirty river. There are tons of tourist knickknacks and street foods for sale. The pollution index was 160. The highest it ever gets in Philly is about 100, the average there is about 30. Qibao was ridiculously crowded. People were shouting and pushing. I walked through the street in this picture with Jonah in his carrier, shielding him from ridiculously large crowd with one hand and eating my snack in the other. I was reflecting on how incredibly overwhelming all this would have seemed to me two and a half years ago when we first arrived in Shanghai. I think the fact that none of it fazes me anymore or is at all overwhelming may be a sign we may have spent a long enough time in Asia...

Day to day life here has become normal, I understand a lot more about the history, the culture and the problems in Shanghai. I understand bits of Mandarin and don't have to rely on Danny for translation as often. I manage to bargain when necessary and can get through most day to day tasks pretty easily. My Mandarin is becoming passable, I talk to our ayi in Chinese everyday after work and I usually at least understand the gist of what she's talking about. It may be better if I don't understand all the old Chinese ladies on the street when they try to tell us Jonah is too little to take out of the house and that he isn't dressed warmly enough... whatever. I'm not hiding in the house for months. Also, it was like 70 degrees out today and I saw babies in snowsuits. Jonah wore a sunhat and a long-sleeve t shirt and still got hot and sweaty. Why do people keep telling me he needs to wear more layers. It is like common sense doesn't exist here. Anyway, I still have a few places I'd like to travel around Asia but I'm starting to think it is time to return home already. I miss the clean air and the food. We are looking for jobs back home next year, we'll see what happens...

 

Bus Buddies

In college I took a really boring sociology course from which I took one concept I found interesting called involved indifference. Involved indifference is a phenomenon that occurs in big cities with an overabundance of stimuli. People actively ignore one another and do not make eye contact in order to avoid over-stimulation. I have an incredibly annoying hour long commute which requires taking a two buses and a train. Usually I avoid talking to anyone on my commute but in Shanghai since I'm a foreigner I stand out. As a pregnant foreigner I stood out even more. For some reason recently strangers I frequently see on my commute seem to want to make small talk with me. I never would have even guessed they knew any English but it seems they learned enough to ask me how the baby is... weird.