My Last Post

I read a book recently called China Wakes about the experience of two New York Times journalists in China during the 1990's. When asked if they enjoyed their time in China they pretty much said it was interesting, not enjoyable. In many ways I'd agree. Living abroad is fascinating. I learned basic Mandarin and a great deal about the culture and history of China as well as the cultures of other countries we visited. I saw places I never even heard of let alone planned on visiting.

I went to Tainan, Taipei, and Kaohsiung, Taiwan. Tokyo, Japan. Seoul, South Korea. Bangkok and Koh Chang, Thailand. Delhi, Agra, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Udaipur, and Mt. Abu, India. Siem Reap, Cambodia. Hong Kong and Macau. Bejing, Xi'an, Harbin, Guilin, Yangshuo, Xiamen, Nanjing, Huangshan, Souzhou, Huangshan, Hefei, Tongli, Xitang, Jiaxing, Zhu Jia Jiao, Kunshan, and Moganshan, China. Danny also went to Lijiang without me. Not bad for three years, especially with the baby slowing down travel plans for the past year. We made friends from China, as well as England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Mexico, and Malaysia and learned about their hometowns too. I saw the Great Wall, Terracotta Warriors, karst mountains, the Taj Mahal, and Angkor Wat.

Our time in Shanghai is finally over. Living far from family, friends and everything I'm familiar with was hard. It took me about six months to really adjust and feel settled. Once I came down from the culture shock in day to day life we have our family and friends and our jobs and life isn't that different wherever you go. The small idiosyncrasies of a foreign culture make things challenging at times but after a while they become routine like anything else. I'll miss the travel but we are happy to leave behind the pollution and Chinese manners and return to the benefits of a first world nation. Most importantly we are happy to bring home Jonah and start a new chapter of our life as a family.

End of Blog... (Unless we move abroad again.)

Why China Eastern Sucks

I have been dreading a flight back to the states with an infant since before Jonah was even born. The week leading up to it our very cranky teething baby spent most of his time crying because I didn't let him grab every item I was attempting to pack. The packing also coincided with Jonah developing his crawling and cruising abilities... it was a stressful couple of weeks.

Jonah trapped by our luggage.

I made sure to reserve a bassinet with a window seat so I could discretely breastfeed Jonah in semi-privacy. When we finally arrived at the airport check-in after our frantic day of last minute packing, a lovely sendoff from our friends and an hour long car ride Jonah was slightly hungry and fussy. The seats assigned to us did not have the bolt heads for a bassinet. The check-in person's excuse was they only promised to reserve the bassinet, not one of the seats where it could be bolted. Seriously! Is Jonah supposed to hang out in the bassinet in front of someone else's seat while Danny and I got our window and aisle seats elsewhere? At least the manager admitted that excuse made no sense. What the manager didn't do was apologize or try to accommodate us. They kept just saying they didn't make the reservation so it wasn't their fault. Awesome customer service. Not once did I hear any sort of apology for not honoring this request which their company promised us in writing a month and a half in advance. I don't usually argue with service people but this is 15 hour flight holding a seven month old... I hate China Eastern. Also they had the crappiest plane I ever flew internationally. It didn't even have personal entertainment centers. Stupid China Eastern.

Jonah sleeping on the airplane floor.

Jonah actually did way better on the plane than I had anticipated. It was a red-eye and he ended up sleeping for 10 of the 15 hours. Part of the time we put him on the floor on his bear mat, part of the time we held him. The other 5 hours he hardly fussed at all, I fed him under my nursing cover during takeoff and he didn't even complain about his ears popping. I'm still mad about the bassinet though.

Angkor What?

I had been hearing about how amazing Angkor is throughout my three years in China and it was the last place I really wanted to get to before leaving Asia. I tried to convince Danny we could go to Cambodia as our first big family holiday but he was nervous about taking Jonah to a country even less developed than China. Eventually we agreed I would go without them and take my first trip away from Jonah.

My friend Emma and I spent three nights in Siem Reap. I think for the most part being away from Jonah wasn't as hard for me as I thought it would be. I knew he would be fine with Danny. I mostly worried Danny would get bored being alone with Jonah and having minimal adult interaction for three and a half days, which he did.

I'm not sure how well known it is among Americans but I never even heard of Angkor before moving to Asia. Not sure if that just means I have a weird gap in my knowledge or it is because Asian history isn't really taught much in the states. In case you are like me and never heard of it Angkor is the most beautiful archaeological site I've ever seen. It was built from the 9th to 15th century by the Khmer empire in what is modern day Cambodia.

It is a huge site made up of many beautiful temples. The three most impressive are

1 Angkor Wat

2 Ta Prohm

3 Bayon Temple

 




There were a bunch of other minor temples that were also really beautiful. We enjoyed taking it slow and wondering through the sites. Emma and I brought along our sketchbooks and stopped to draw and just relax and enjoy the view now and then. We hired a tuk tuk driver from our hotel for two days and he took us around to all the temples for about $15 a day. The third day we road bikes to the temples. A few tours went by while we were there and we were both very happy not to take one and to go at our own pace.

The guides kept talking in thick accents about temples where Tomb Raider was filmed. Siem Reap hasn't taken it as far as Udaipur though. When Danny and I were in Udaipur every hotel had regular viewings of Octopussy, but they seem pretty proud to be the site of a Hollywood movie. I have to admit, it isn't a bad gimmick. After visiting Angkor Wat I wanted to watch Tomb Raider just to see the sites we'd visited.

We also stopped at an artisan workshop where they made crafts including stonework similar to what is found inside the temple. Apparently, in addition to selling their work to tourists they used their work to refurbish the temples. I'm not sure how I feel about renovating archaeological sites as compared to preserving them but it was a cool place and they trained locals  in an impoverished country to have a skilled trade.

 

It is a very poor country and I was worried it would be really unpleasant and we'd be hassled for money non-stop like in India. People there were way more laid back and friendly. There were beggars and sales people but they weren't pushy or rude. If you said you weren't interested, they pretty much left you alone. It also may have helped that we went during the rainy season so it wasn't very crowded. I'd heard stories from friends about naked children begging for money, and it sounded awful. There were naked babies but people there just don't bother with baby clothing if they can't afford it, it is pretty hot there so whatever...

The city of Siem Reap was also way nice and more developed than I expected. Our hotel was really cute. I picked one with good reviews on Agoda. The restaurants and bars were very globalized and built up to accommodate tourists. I was a little sad nowhere had local food to try though. We ate pancakes, Tex Mex and ice cream instead... We actually were able to find some western goods in the touristy area of Siem Reap a lot more easily than in Shanghai.

I'm glad we went in the rainy season and there weren't too many other tourists. I brought rain ponchos and we wore them for about an hour a day when it poured. The rest of the day the weather was beautiful. 

The only bad part of the trip was I felt a little bit like we were being scammed when we did a tour of the floating village. They offer boat tours for $24 when right below there are water taxis locals take for $1. It is a tourist boat so I guess that makes sense but it is quite a markup. The guide tells you a bit about the village then they try to sell you ridiculously overpriced $40 bags of rice to donate to the school and he got mad and sulked when we didn't buy any. He just didn't speak to us after that... It was still interesting to see how people lived. Their homes are on boats, the school and stores are on boats too. There was no electricity but people bought generators if they could afford it or used batteries. There was no running water and they bathed in the very polluted lake. The life expectancy was low and there were lots of problems but it didn't seem that horrible. People looked fairly happy and well fed at least.

Cambodia is a poor country with a terrible history but seeing Angkor Wat definitely was worth it and is one of the most incredible places I've visited in all my travels.

Ayi

Domestic help (or an ayi as they are called in China) is considered a luxury in the western world, but it is pretty standard in Asia. I never wanted to hire a nanny and always was uncomfortable with the idea of a stranger caring for my baby. When the high end of an ayi's salary is only a fifth of mine it just makes sense to hire an ayi and continue working. Less expensive ayis are available for a tenth of my salary.

Coming from the states where only the extravagantly wealthy have full time help I found it hard to get used to having an ayi. I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood where I knew some people who had full time help but I always felt uncomfortable witnessing a blatant class divide in people's homes. For me the reality of having a domestic servant in my home is that I feel awkward and uncomfortable. The ayi we hired turned out to be very warm and loving towards Jonah. I still find it tough to have private family moments while someone is waiting on us. At the end of the day when I got home from work and just wanted to relax I never knew what to do with myself while ayi was washing my dishes or tidying up before leaving. Even if ayi is being paid to do a job, I feel lazy if I'm not working when she is.

I also have to say, it is hard as a parent to see your child depend more on someone we hired than on me. I am glad he bonded with her but I can't help wanting him to come to me for comfort before the ayi. In the states even if I go back to work we are more likely to send Jonah to daycare where several people will care for him rather than one ayi. I feel a lot more comfortable with that setup. In a classroom or daycare kids don't tend to bond with caregivers as closely as to their parents. I feel more comfortable with that setup. Even though our ayi was great with Jonah I am very relieved I'll have some time home with him for a while.

Living in Shanghai the division of wealth is more obvious than in the states and most families we know hire an ayi. Migrant workers from the countryside come to the cities to earn money. The money goes far in the migrant workers' hometowns but while in Shanghai or other big Chinese cities they often live in awful conditions. They don't have a huko, a residency permit that gives them access to numerous government services like housing, and many of them live at their work, be it a construction site or a factory dormitory. Locals here more openly look down on migrant workers than Americas do; Chinese locals seem comfortable yelling at service people indiscriminately. Once when a cleaning ayi at my work tried to tell me something in an indecipherable Chinese dialect I asked one of my students what ayi said. My sixth grader at the very privileged private school where I taught said it didn't matter what an ayi said and made the somewhat disturbing comparison of the cleaning ayi to an insect buzzing around her ear. Americans prefer to tell ourselves that people are people and every man is created equal, that sort of thing. We mostly frown upon insect metaphors.

The word ayi is Mandarin for Auntie. It is a term used to respectfully address any female adult, sounds very communist and equalizing to me. Danny says it is just how Chinese etiquette works, you refer to everyone based on their familial relationship to you and all women are call Auntie. Danny thinks it has nothing to do with communist ideology that all cleaning women are called Aunties. Meanwhile Chinese higher ups seem to frequently be referred to as Madam, a French term which brings to mind associations quite different than that of an Auntie. For a "communist" country the class divide is pretty intense and with a very basic knowledge of China's history I can't imagine it any other way. There have been emperors for so many generations, as far as I can tell the communist party is just another empire. Chinese workers are culturally expected to very dogmatically do what the boss says and not question it, even if your boss says to do things that make no sense.

America somewhat comically seems to hide its huge class divide so that the wealthy don't spend much time exposed to people who aren't wealthy. Instead of hiring a staff to wash our clothing and dishes Americans buy machines. It is funny because it sort of tricks us into forgetting that we are more wealthy than the majority of people in the world. I didn't grow up with a houseful of servants, I grew up with a laundry machine and a dishwasher. Members of the wealthiest 10% in America often don't even realize they are wealthy. Visiting slums in India or even west Philly are a pretty stark reminder that poverty definitely does exist. In China, and many developing nations a lot of the work we use a machine for is done with backbreaking physical labor. I've never done it, but hand cleaning all my clothing with a washing board sounds pretty exhausting. I never gave much thought to how most tasks I use a machine for are done by hand most places around the world.

Having an ayi was an interesting experience but I'm pretty happy to be home with Jonah instead for a while.

Tainan

We finally took Jonah on his first trip this weekend! Staying home with a baby has been quite a change from the constant travel we did our first two years in China. We were nervous Jonah would cry when his ears popped, or be fussy about sleeping in a different place and not following his normal routine but things went surprisingly smoothly.

We spent all our time in Tainan with family; mostly at restaurants and Danny's grandma's home. It was fun being around family, we definitely miss having family around while living abroad. Visiting Danny's family was a lot less overwhelming than my visit three years ago. Now I can understand a bit of mandarin and things don't feel quite so foreign. Taiwan is noticeably calmer and more orderly than mainland China. It was a shame we didn't have a chance to fit in any sightseeing unless you count the temple we stopped in for two minutes on the walk from our hotel to Danny's grandmother's place.

Jonah was pretty happy to meet his great grandmother and his extended family. Everyone was so eager to see him; he had his personal paparazzi follow him around all weekend snapping photos. It was really cute how excited they all were about him. If anything Jonah was happier than usual with all the extra attention. I do think he got a bit overstimulated at some points but overall he handled the trip really well. I'm hoping he will do equally well with our move to the states this summer. We are moving back at the end of July.

Ready for his close up!

Jonah's camera crew!

More Jonah photographers at lunch.

Jonah and his great grandma.

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.

Year of the Horse

Chinese New Year is the biggest holiday on the calendar here and my school closes for three weeks. The national calendar gives a week off and almost all Chinese nationals go home to spend it with their families. With all the migrant workers in China heading home, I've read it is the biggest human migration anywhere.

Usually I consider it a good time to leave the country. All the tourist spots in China are overcrowded and most non-tourist spots are closed. More than half the expats I know travel abroad for the holiday. This was the first time I stayed in China for the Chinese New Year. Last year Danny and I traveled all over Northern India. The year before that I went home to the states; Danny stayed in Shanghai and told me about the ridiculous amount of fireworks set off around the city. With a newborn big trips weren't in our plans this year. We make it out of the house for about an hour or two a day and usually that is just so we can get food or other essentials.

It is the year of the horse. Last year was the year of the snake. Apparently, since Jonah is a snake baby according to the Chinese calendar he is now two. They grow up so fast! Two years ago was the year of the dragon and according to my Ob/gyn lots of people purposely timed it to have dragon babies.

We haven't done anything to celebrate the new year. I'm honestly not entirely clear on how it is celebrated other than spending time with family and setting off fireworks. I know the color red and fireworks are meant to scare away a legendary monster that comes once a year. I think the fireworks weren't quite as abundant in Shanghai this year because people cut back on them due to all the pollution. There are still more than at any fourth of July displays I've ever seen and they went on a whole week instead of one day. The fireworks are much more random and sporadic, there aren't shows with grand finales, just lots of random fireworks. They go off all over the city sometimes dangerously close to people and buildings. I'm not quite clear on it but there are a few specific days during the week of New Year where you set off fireworks for different reasons. There also seem to be very few regulations in Shanghai on who can set them off and where. This random tent popped up a few blocks from our house to sell fireworks; when we walked past the tent there were four police men buying fireworks. If you look closely in our photo you may notice a police man. I'm still not sure if it is legal.

I was worried all the fireworks would scare Jonah but he seems to be pretty much indifferent to them. Danny on the other hand has barely been able to sleep.

The Chinese New Year and my maternity leave are almost over. Crazy how fast it went! Jonah is 6 weeks old already (or 2 years if you follow the Chinese lunar calendar). I go back to work on Monday. We finally hired an ayi to take care of Jonah yesterday so I feel sort of ready for work now. She seems really nice but it still is no fun leaving him with a stranger. Our ayi starts tomorrow so she has two days of training while I'm home before the holiday ends and I start work. Xin nian kuai le.

Baby Jonah

Jonah's here! It didn't go smoothly as I hoped but he is happy and healthy. He was over a week late and the waiting really sucked. I stopped work a few days before my due date and I was really bored  for about two weeks. People kept telling me to relax and enjoy the quiet but I definitely would have preferred an extra week with the baby over a week of waiting around for him. I don't really believe in it but I even tried out a few of the stupid old wives tales to induce labor like eating pineapple and getting a foot massage.

I really didn't want to be induced but at my checkup they had some concerns so I ended up having to at 41 weeks and 1 day. I had a check up with a different doctor who wanted to induce one day earlier but he was awful so I waited until my regular doctor was available. The other doctor referred to inducing labor as wanting to "close my case." Seriously, it is a baby, not a legal brief. I was really glad my regular doctor delivered Jonah.

Jonah was born 9:30 pm on Christmas eve. We will forever continue to get comments about him having a Christmas birthday and how great it will be for him getting double presents. He isn't getting Christmas presents. When Jonah gets bigger he needs to think up some clever jokes about being a Jew born on Christmas eve.

Inducing sucked. I'm not the type to be excited about the natural childbirth thing but I'm kind of scared of drugs, I don't even like to take Tylenol, so I was hoping to take as few medications as possible. I ended up getting all kinds of stuff to start labor and stop the pain and I had some unusual complications in the middle and had to be sedated part way through. Jonah's heart rate was weird for a while and I almost needed an emergency c-section. They were all prepared for him to have problems but he was totally healthy when he arrived. The hospital care was pretty much as good or better than what we'd expect to get in the states. The nurses were all really nice and helpful but being in the hospital was exhausting and I barely slept the whole time. When it was finally time for us to leave we found out Jonah had jaundice and we needed to stay and put him under UV lights for an extra 12 hours. He hated it and it burned his skin and gave him a heat rash. Once we got home from the hospital things got a bit easier and Danny and I were able to sleep a lot more.

The first few weeks with Jonah were a bit hectic. We had all his grandparents visit from the states. First, Danny's parents came. We thought Jonah would be born before they visited but since he was a week late he wasn't born until halfway through their visit. After they left we had two days by ourselves and then my parents came. In the meantime, Danny had to go to the states for a conference for ten days and by the time he got back he missed half of Jonah's life. Now things are finally settled down into a normal routine.

Before I had a baby I thought changing diapers was the part I'd hate but it doesn't really bother me. I even mostly got over the fact that he has managed to pee on his own face mid diaper change on two separate occasions. That required some serious bathing. (DANNY NOTE: More than 2, Shoshana doesn't know them all...)  The lack of sleep everyone warned us about hasn't been that bad. We actually have managed to get 6 or 7 hours total most nights and Jonah generally hasn't been that fussy late at night, usually he wakes up once or twice, eats and goes right back to sleep. Turns out breastfeeding was the toughest part of having a baby for me. I don't understand these people who think breastfeeding is this beautiful magical experience. At least my experience the first few weeks was really awful, and painful. Also, why didn't anyone ever tell me about cluster feeding... he wants to eat nonstop for hours... it sucks. At least he sleeps for a long time afterward. I kind of wondered how I'd spend all my time after he was born. I spend most of my waking hours feeding him. I frequently use a free hand to research information about all the random things Jonah does, including cluster feeding. The one really good part of breastfeeding is it makes you lose weight really fast. I barely looked pregnant by the time I left the hospital. Feeding him is a whole lot better now that I have started pumping and can give him bottles instead but pumping really makes me feel like a cow. At least it gives me the freedom to leave the house by myself now and then. Anyway, the first few weeks were tough but things are much calmer and happier now that we've gotten more used to caring for him and he's in more of a routine.

After having a baby, I can understand better why Chinese locals have so many postpartum customs. I had a really easy pregnancy but the few weeks after he was born were tough health wise. I had more annoying postpartum symptoms than pregnancy symptoms. The concept of having a relative or yue sao take care of the mother and baby the month after birth makes more sense to me now. Most of the Chinese postpartum customs in my opinion are kind of crazy and irrational though. That is my general opinion on Chinese medicine but especially on the rules on what foods to eat and avoid after having a baby and the thing about not being allowed to do anything including taking baths for a month after the baby is born.

I have less than two weeks left until I am supposed to go back to work. Even though I'm going to miss Jonah I'm looking forward to getting back to having a regular routine and getting some time out of the house. So far in the 5 weeks since Jonah was born I left the house without him twice, once was for a doctor's appointment and once was to pick up some dinner. The scary part of going back to work is leaving him with a nanny or as they are called here an ayi. We still haven't found one. We have had six interviews so far and most of the sounded like they are more skilled in cooking and cleaning than in childcare. They also seemed to know absolutely nothing about child development. We interviewed one woman whose answer to what activities would you do with the baby during the day was watch tv...  Awesome. Read stories, play with toys, at least make something up. Am I expecting too much here?

The fun parts of having Jonah around are that he is super cuddly and cute and every day he learns new things that are pretty amazing. At a week and a half he started to be able to hold his head up. Yesterday he figured out how to roll over on his side. He is getting a lot more alert now and he stares at our faces like he is trying to figure us out. He is really funny when he sleeps, he giggles and pouts while he dreams. It is fun to notice all the little things he does and watch him change every day. He also is really fun to snuggle with.

Pollution Sucks

I never was that into environmentalism until I moved to a developing country and saw how horrible the things we are doing to this planet really are. The pollution the past two weeks has been the worst I've seen since moving to China. Everything looks hazy all the time and the air smells bad.

It reminded me of this song I like:

I got a really sore throat the first day the pollution index was over 300 and ended up getting really sick for a day. At my last check up (I go once a week now for the baby) my doctor mentioned half her patients had a cold this week. I worry a lot about whether the pollution will hurt the baby. My students seem to be coughing and sniffling non-stop. I run our air purifier whenever I'm in the house. I've started wearing a PM2.5 mask whenever I'm outside now. It makes me feel really Chinese. I remember when we first moved to Asia and I saw people wearing masks I thought it was so odd. Now I get it. I cringe every time I see people smoking. Instead of paying for cigarettes they should just breath deep and get all their toxins that way.

The only time I saw air quality this bad in the states was by the twin towers during few weeks after 9/11. The pollution index is currently 203 (very unhealthy). Better  than earlier this morning when it was 408 (hazardous). http://aqicn.org/city/shanghai/ Between this and the typhoon flooding in October there seem to be a lot of signs we need to move back to America. I miss home. This sucks.

Pregnancy

Now that my pregnancy is almost over (5 1/2 weeks left until my due date) I'm going to write a bit about being pregnant in China. It has pretty much been a normal healthy pregnancy with some normal annoying pregnancy discomforts like heartburn, round ligament pain, mood swings, and swollen hands and feet. My wedding and engagement rings stopped fitting and I can't wear them until after the little one arrives; it sucks. Anyway, for the most part I'm doing well.

I'm working up until the week before our baby is due. It is really exhausting at times but it is better than sitting around the house counting down the days until he gets here. I do have a count down on the white board in my classroom though.

 
My students have funny comments about the pregnancy sometimes. Today one of my second graders told me my tummy is really fat. I told him it is rude to tell people they are fat, even if it is true. In Chinese culture, people don't have any qualms about telling people they are fat. They seem to think it is helpful. When I was just starting to show a little and hadn't started telling people I'm pregnant one of the ayis (cleaning women) at work came up to me and said that my stomach was fat and pointed out that she was much skinnier than me. I wanted to tell her that she has no chest and looks like a 12 year old boy but I kept my mouth shut, instead I was like "yeah, I eat a lot."

Even though I told them I was having a baby at the start of the year, some of my students are totally oblivious and still don't know I'm pregnant. Occasionally, one of them randomly asks me why my belly is so big. Kids are funny.

A few of my kids also really like to pat my belly. At first it is kind of adorable when a six-year-old tries to pat your belly and say hi to the baby, although it does eventually get pretty annoying. In contrast, it is really weird and awkward when the ayis from my work try to rub my belly. I'm tempted to rub their bellies in response and see how much they like it. I usually step backwards and avoid them instead. I don't understand the logic of walking up to someone you barely know and touching their stomach. It is such a bizarre invasion of personal space. My view is that if I'm not close enough to someone to give them a hug, I definitely am not close enough for them to touch my stomach. Most of the ayis got the hint after I dodged them awkwardly once or twice except for this one woman who seems to have total lack of normal social skills. She does weird things like come up to my desk while I'm trying to work and stand behind me watching what I'm doing on the computer for what seems like a really long interval. I know she doesn't speak a word of English and has no idea what I'm typing but it is really bizarre.

Getting back to the belly rubbing thing, I wonder if this is actually much different for people in the states. I know it happens in there too but I don't know how often it happens by comparison. Danny showed me an article last week about it being illegal to touch a pregnant women's belly in Pennsylvania. Here it is. Funny...

For the most part people here are really nice about me being pregnant though. Occasionally, being a pregnant foreigner I feel like people on the street stare at me a bit more than usual and seem confused by what I'm doing here. (Hello, I live here, get over it.) That happens to foreigners occasionally regardless but it happens more so now because I'm pregnant. At least in Shanghai they are more used to foreigners than elsewhere in China so it doesn't happen all the time.

I think in general Chinese people make a bigger fuss over pregnant women than Americans do. Danny thinks it might be because China is a pretty patriarchal society, a women's role is as a mother and they aren't valued for much else. Plenty of women work here and contribute to society in other ways but it is more patriarchal than the states and there is a greater expectation that women will quit their jobs and stay home with the baby. Lots of women I know in the states are stay at home moms too, but in some ways American society looks down at that and thinks it is lazy not to work. I think it is kind of sad because usually a nanny or day care center can't give kids the same kind of care and attention they would get from a parent. I wonder if Chinese people think there is something really wrong with western culture that so many women want to work instead of caring for their kids. I'm still planning to work full time after our little guy is born. We are going to find an ayi but it is really scary to imagine leaving him with a stranger. We are lucky Danny's office is next to our apartment and he has a flexible schedule. Worst case if we aren't thrilled with the ayi he can work from home most of the day except when he has meetings. Hopefully, we'll find someone good though and we'll be happy with her.

My perspective may be kind of skewed on how big a fuss the Chinese really make over pregnant women because America has pretty crappy treatment for them. I'm impressed that Chinese women are entitled by law to three months of fully paid maternity leave, although this is only if the woman is married and is in compliance with the one child policy. I'm completely amazed by Norway where families get a year of paid leave and they can choose to split it between the mother and father however they want.

I'm not actually getting three months paid leave because there apparently are some loopholes based on how my visa was processed. Basically, in China laws often aren't followed because there is no transparency and nobody really knows what the laws are. The laws seem to kind of change all the time at the whim of whoever happens to be in power. One time there was a week where police randomly started ticketing people for not wearing seat-belts and all the taxi drivers insisted you put one on. Then the next week it stopped completely. Bureaucracy is also a nightmare here. When you go to places like the dmv in the states they have lists available of what documents you need to bring, in China I think they make it up on the spot. Sometimes they keep telling you you need extra stuff and make you come back multiple times in the hopes that you are willing to pay a bribe to avoid dealing with it. It really makes me appreciate home where law and order exists and bureaucracy goes relatively smoothly. I still think it is pretty crappy that lots of pregnant women aren't entitled to any paid leave in the states though, lots of places women just get a guarantee they'll hold your job for you and they don't pay anything.

I also think the Chinese make a bigger deal out of pregnancy partly because of the one child policy. Many women only have one pregnancy in their life. The one child policy has a lot of loopholes so lots of people still have more than one kid in China. Some loopholes include: you and your spouse both being only children, and having earned an advanced degree abroad. If you live in rural areas I think they don't bother checking. People who qualify for these loopholes can apply and be approved to have a second child. Needing to apply to the government before you try to  have a kid is such a weird concept. Some Chinese people ignore the policy and just pay fines, which is what lots of families at the expensive private school where I work do. I think the fines get higher for every kid you have. One of the teachers I work with told me she has three siblings and the youngest one was really expensive for her parents. If you don't pay the fines there are forced abortions here which you occasionally hear about on the news in western countries. I think it getting a forced abortion also has a lot to do with pissing off the wrong people because if you have good guanxi (connections) you can get out of almost anything in this country. It is really corrupt. I have no idea how often forced abortions actually happen though, it isn't like the government allows anyone to record or publicize this stuff. However, I can say I don't personally know of anyone here who has had a forced abortion.

There also are lots of rich Chinese people who plan trips to the United States around the time their baby is due so their kid can have American citizenship and they don't have to worry about any of this crap. Frankly, if you can afford it why wouldn't you. I personally know people here that have gone abroad to have kids and I don't blame them at all. Everyone wants the best for their kids. I also have a friend here whose girlfriend's job is to arrange medical holidays for wealthy Chinese people. It is pretty much the most hilarious job ever.

Also related to the one child policy, it is illegal to find out the sex of your baby in China because they are worried people will find out it is a girl and have an abortion. We go to one of the two western hospitals in Shanghai and they told us the sex anyway. I think they are only allowed to tell us because we are foreigners and there are signs in the ultrasound room that say they aren't allowed to disclose the sex of babies. If Chinese people have the money, there are lots of places they can go that will tell them the sex regardless. It is funny some of our Chinese friends from Danny's work were shocked when we told them that it is possible to find out the baby's sex in China.

We are having a boy by the way and I'm really excited about him but hopefully we'll have a little girl too eventually. China has had to have ad campaigns to say girls are as good as boys because lots of people were having abortions when they found out they were having a girl. Even worse there are stories about people selling or even murdering baby girls.

It isn't that people here don't love their daughters but it is a patriarchal society and everyone wants a boy to "carry on their family name". Girls are considered a burden and traditionally once they come of age they "marry out" and are no longer considered to be part of the family. It is changing but that is in the culture. Given that lots of people can only have one child, most of them prefer a boy.

Getting back to what I was saying before, people here are really considerate of pregnant women. In spite of pushing and shoving for seats on the train and bus, people offer me their seat during my long, boring commute almost every time. If nobody does, which is rare, I'm kind of obnoxious and stare at the people in the courtesy seats until they feel guilty and offer me one. Usually, someone who isn't in the reserved seat offers me their spot first. I think people who are likely to offer their seat to a pregnant women aren't that likely to sit in the reserved seats. The people in the courtesy seats usually wear headphones and pretend to be asleep so nobody can ask them to move. Once or twice when nobody gave me a chair I say excuse me and gesture at the sign to make them move. I feel kind of mean but my commute is an hour door to door each way and it gets really exhausting.

People I actually know and come in contact with in my day to day life are also mostly pretty nice about the pregnancy and mean well. I don't know how it would compare at home but locals (and some expats) here still have a lot of annoying opinions and comments about pregnancy. The other day I was telling my students very sternly to be quiet in the hall and stop running when one of the Chinese teachers told me I shouldn't get angry because it is bad for the baby... seriously, he'll be fine. He better get used to it because if our little boy acts all silly and hyper when he is supposed to be in quietly standing in line he'll be in trouble.

Other awkward comments I've gotten while pregnant include strangers telling us our baby will be cute because mixed babies are the cutest kind. Umm... thanks? I've also been told foreign babies are bigger than Chinese babies. Are they saying foreigners are fat? In China, like many places outside western countries, people just aren't politically correct. In fact, it is quite off putting that people are often openly racist here. Think about the way things were in the states back in the 1950 when it was ok to tell someone you weren't hiring them because you are looking for someone white or because it is a man's job. That is legal in China today. It is pretty messed up. It isn't that people are trying to be mean, they just are a bit ignorant. Typically, Chinese people have really positive views of white people and really negative views of anyone with dark skin. Since a lot of Chinese people don't actually know anyone who is black, I think it comes from Hollywood portraying African Americans as gangsters all the time. The stereotypes about Jews are also pretty funny here. I've also been told by a relatively well educated Chinese woman that "Jews are the smartest race of people." Umm... thanks?

Another really bizarre thing which is kind of funny about pregnancy in China is the booming industry of anti-radiation gear. One time one of the ayis yelled at me for sitting too close to the computer and said I should wear one. I was sad my Chinese isn't good enough to explain that nobody outside China uses them because anti-radiation ponchos don't do anything and the whole industry is a scam. I heard there have been news reports recently explaining that they don't work but I'm not sure if they are losing popularity. I've noticed fewer people wearing them on the subway lately but who knows. It sometimes seems like wearing them is also a way to announce you are pregnant. Some women start wearing an anti-radiation poncho the day they find out they are pregnant. They don't seem at all concerned about waiting a few months until they are sure it is a healthy pregnancy before telling people. The custom here seems to be to announce you are pregnant the second you find out.

The Chinese also have some interesting customs about caring for pregnant women and new mothers. Most  customs stem from Chinese medicine, which I think is a lot of nonsense. Following cultural traditions can be really nice, but not when it comes to my health. I want treatments that are proven to work using scientific method. I haven’t bothered to actually spend time studying Chinese medicine but people have told me there are tons of rules about what things you should and should not eat while pregnant. They are mostly based on whether the food is perceived to be hot or cold. I'm not quite sure how they work that out.

There seem to be even more rules for after the baby is born than during pregnancy. Chinese medicine teaches that women are in their most fragile state after giving birth and basically need to be on bed rest and do nothing but eat giant pots of Chinese herbal medicine for a month. New mothers aren't even supposed to shower, they are only allowed to take sponge baths for a full month. Most of the time for the month after the baby is born, a female relative comes to care for the woman and baby according to Chinese tradition. It pretty much can be any woman who has experienced caring for a newborn and new mother, often the baby's grandma.

The first time I heard about this was before moving to China when we visited friends with a newborn. Everyday the grandmother came over and made a giant pot of Chinese herbal medicine. Every night after she left, the father dumped it out and brought take out food. I know a lot of similar stories from people in China. After Danny's co-worker's wife had a baby she used to sneak out of bed in the middle of the night and eat handfuls of pure salt because her mother wouldn't let her have anything with salt in it. The younger more educated people we know don't tend to buy into the whole Chinese medicine thing. Fortunately, my in-laws are nice reasonable people who aren't trying to make us follow these silly customs.

If you don't have a relative to take care of the mother and baby, you can also hire someone called a yue sao (month sister-in-law) or there are live-in centers where mothers and babies can go to be cared for the month after the birth. A few of our Chinese friends have asked us if we are going to have a yue sao. Both my parents and Danny's parents are coming to visit for about a week to meet our little one but we are pretty much planning to take care of him by ourselves after he is born. A lot of locals here seem very shocked by this and ask how we will know how to take care of the baby. They don't get that people like me and Danny are more likely to read about stuff and take a class than hire someone or have our parents do it for us. I know it is quite different when it is your own child but I have worked in education for a long time, including a few month in a child care center caring for infants. I know it is tiring but I think between the two of us we'll figure out how to take care of our baby. The Chinese system of education teaches a lot of rote memorization and very little problem solving which is why I think locals in general have a harder time taking on real world responsibility themselves. I know it sounds mean of me but a lot of the time people educated in China show a lot of ignorance and an inability to think logically. They are great at standardized tests though.

This brings me to the crazy rant MK, the midwife that teaches our childbirth class, went on this week. I may not have this totally correct but she is ethnically Chinese and she was born in Shanghai but grew up in Hong Kong and spent like ten years in New York delivering high risk babies in the Bronx. Anyway, her rant last night was pretty crazy. She started out saying it it is bad that Chinese people have too many c-sections. She said they think that if there is a chance they may have to get a c-section anyway after going through the pains of labor, they may as well get the c-section from the beginning and avoid the pain of labor. It turned into a metaphor for how Chinese people are lazy and don't want to work for anything. She pretty much said they spoil their children because thanks to the one child policy every kid has six adults (2 parents and 4 grandparents) doing everything for the kid. I've seen shriveled, elderly grandmothers carrying heavy bags for perfectly healthy teenagers here. It is sort of crazy. There is a whole stigma in China about only children being "little emperors" who only care about themselves. MK had some points that are true but it was a pretty harsh, intensely negative rant about Chinese society in the middle of our childbirth class. I know sometimes when I talk about Chinese culture I come across a kind of negative but wow. MK is really opinionated and I find her a little bit intimidating so I tend to be sort of quiet in class. She is really great in many ways though and pretty much every expat I know with kids likes her. We have friends who have had her deliver three of their sons and are on the fourth. She isn't my midwife, just the teacher for our childbirth class but she may do our baby's circumcision.

We have the class once a week for six weeks. We have two secessions left and by the time it is over I'll be just about full term. Overall our class has been pretty good and has had lots of useful info about pregnancy, labor, pain management and medical interventions. The last two classes are about caring for newborns and breastfeeding. Every now and then she says things in class that feel like she is talking directly to us. One week I got really mad at Danny for saying he was thinking about going into the office part time during the three days I'll be at the hospital when the baby is born. The next day in class MK mentioned that she expects all the dads to pack overnight bags and stay at the hospital the whole time. That was when I decided she is awesome. She also likes to yell at people when their husbands don't come and tell everyone that the best dads are the ones who go to all the classes. In addition she tells everyone that the dads also are not allowed to travel when it gets close to the due date and that the moms should take away their passports. She has lots of anecdotes about women going into labor early when their husbands are abroad. Since it is taught in English and is offered by the western hospital, it is a pretty international class. Everyone is either an expat or married to an expat. Lots of people constantly travel abroad. Danny has gone to all of the classes so far so she doesn't yell at us. He also has not missed a single doctor's appointment; he's pretty wonderful. He also cooks for me a lot when I'm tired and has been taking really good care of me throughout the pregnancy. I feel kind of bad for the women whose husbands' keep not showing up. I don't know how single mom's do it. I couldn't handle being pregnant without Danny.

On a totally different topic, I thought I'd talk a bit about hospitals in China. We go to Shanghai United Family Hospital. As I mentioned earlier it is one of two western hospitals in Shanghai. The other one is called Parkway Health. Shanghai United it is clean, things usually run smoothly and everyone we deal with there speaks English at least moderately well. The facilities are really nice. We did a tour of the maternity ward last week. The delivery rooms are large private rooms; they have couches for visitors and their bathrooms even have jacuzzi bathtubs. In contrast people I know that went to local Chinese hospitals have lots of unpleasant stories. It sounds like they are more crowded and there is more waiting and lower quality care. I don't think they have private delivery rooms and in a lot of them men aren't allowed in when you give birth which sounds awful since I really need Danny there. Some of the local hospitals also have VIP sections with English speaking doctors and somewhat better conditions but they aren't great and lots of people have horror stories about them. I would be really scared to give birth at a local hospital but a lot of people have no other option because the western hospitals are so expensive. You need to have been on your insurance plan for an around a year before conceiving or they count it as a preexisting condition and won't cover maternity. Fortunately, my insurance plan has covered everything with no issues so far. Filing the claims is a little annoying at times though.

Overall we have been pretty happy with my care here. I think it may actually be better than what we would get in the states. There are a few surprising things though. For some reason they do way more ultrasounds here than in the states. Also, when I needed to get a Rhogam shot because I'm RH negative the hospital wasn't able to provide it. Instead they gave us the info to order it ourselves online. Then we had to store it in our fridge until we brought it in to get the shot. Danny said it is probably because less than 1% of Asians are RH negative so it isn't widely available in China. It still was kind of weird ordering the medication for an injection online rather than getting it directly from a doctor. I never did that in America.

The only problem I've really had is I needed to switch doctors last month because my original doctor went on maternity leave in the states. At first I was kind of upset I had to switch doctors at seven months pregnant but I've seen my new doctor twice now and she seems fine. She spent the last 10 years in the USA, speaks perfect English and is familiar with current medical procedures in America.

the lobby of the hospital

This is now officially the longest post I ever wrote so I'm going to wrap it up. If you actually made it through reading this whole thing you must be a really good friend, or someone with way too much time on their hands. Five and a half more weeks! We are pretty much ready. We bought all his stuff in  the states this summer and set up a little nursery for him. I even drew decorations to hang on the wall and sewed designs onto his storage bins. We bought him some Dr. Suess books that come in English and Chinese and I'm learning to read him Green Eggs and Ham in Chinese. I don't think I'll have anymore travel posts for a while so probably next time I post it will be something about being a mom. Hopefully he'll arrive on time and things will go smoothly!

Moganshan

Even though we mostly stopped traveling when Danny’s work organized a weekend trip to the mountains we decided to go. It was in Moganshan, a three hour bus ride outside Shanghai. We mostly did some hiking around the mountains and the lake. We took it easy and sat down a lot while people were walking around looking at sights. We stayed in a fairly nice hotel and it was fun hanging out with Danny’s co-workers. I wasn’t thrilled with the food which was all traditional Chinese banquet meals. I packed my own snacks and didn’t really eat the Chinese banquet meals. There wasn’t anything terribly impressive to see but it was nice to get out of the city for a weekend.