What we now know...

Happy New Year! It’s been a year o’ lessons for us...about Chinar, about ourselves.  

Some of our top China-related learnings from 2009:

1. Stomach problems aren’t just for foreigners. The number one reason D’s students are late to class: “Teacher, my stomach was giving me trouble.” The number one reason D’s students ask to leave class: “Teacher, my stomach is giving me trouble.” The number one reason D’s students miss class: “Teacher, my stomach was giving me trouble.”
2. This is a highly-impersonal-yet-immediate-bff (best friend forever) society. Try not to feel offended, just introduce yourself. Don't be surprised if someone that doesn't know you closes the elevator door on you (literally!), refuses to help you, or fails to hold the door open for you and your scooter though you are just 2 or 3 feet behind. But also don't be surprised if, after meeting someone for the first time, they invite you over for dumplings and treat you like their brother or sister, inviting you to spend Spring Festival with them in their hometown. It's confusing, yet endearing, and once you get used to it, quite understandable. We’ve met such sweet-hearted friends.  
3. To go with lesson 2, there are a lot of people in Chin(ar). Duh, the country’s population is over 1.3 billion. Yes, we thought we knew that too. But living here, you realize the sheer MASS of people surrounding you on a daily basis, trying to get from Point A to Point B. Jostling you on the subway, narrowly missing your feet with their bikes, trying to get you to buy their stuff at the market (as opposed to the exact same stuff at the stall across the aisle), competing with you for taxis…it’s an adventure and sometimes you get pooped. It’s okay. Reward yourself with a 2 kuai McDonald's ice cream cone on the bad days, it helps.
   
4. Speaking of pooped…if you can get one main errand done a day, call it a good day! Early on, our friends cautioned us that getting stuff done here is not always straightforward, and can be exhausting…for cultural and language reasons, and also just purely logistical ones. We quickly learned the wisdom of this. Not to mention the fact that at home, “going out to run errands” meant stopping at several stores in our car, and loading the goods into the trunk. Here, we’re lucky if we can get the goods home from one store home on our scooter. It took us a long time to get used to just one big task a day (feels highly inefficient even now), but really, it’s a good rule to not make yourself crazy or dead. 
5. Night-showering is key here. We’ve both converted from morning-showerers to evening-showerers. It’s a necessity..
   
6. We take credit for granted. It took us a good two months to adjust to living in a largely cash-based, very “pre-paid” society. (More than once, I found myself without the means to check out at the grocery store...after spending 45 minutes winding my way around -- or bumping into -- people in the store.) Few people have credit cards, and the cards that are used are mostly debit. Electricity is pre-paid: we have to take a credit-card sized card to the bank, stand in line, pay cash to have it charged, take it home, call the building maintenance people to come and charge our electricity meter. Internet is pre-paid: we go to the bank, stand in line, pay cash into our phone company account, and in return our internet is not shut off. Gym memberships are pre-paid: a year, sometimes 18 months at a time. Rent is even pre-paid: six months, sometimes a year at a time (who DOES that?). The first time we paid six month’s rent in cash, we freaked out at how much cash we were carrying...I have never held so much money in my life. We dearly miss checks and credit cards… \
7. Socks just don’t get as clean when your washing machine only has cold water. All of our socks have taken on a slightly brownish tinge. Ick.
8. There's a reason Chinese people wear face masks everywhere, and it's not just for fear of H1N1. Think Air Quality Index (AQI) that’s off the charts... D’s taken to wearing the hard-core 3M masks with a little filter that my mom got us before we came. I sometimes wear a cotton one with bears and an ice cream cone.
9. There are ways around (almost) everything, as long as you know the right people. Unfortunately for us, this is not always the case. Which is why it took us 6 weeks to figure out the initial visa stuff. But still a lesson, nonetheless.
10. Just because you don’t get it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t make sense. Be quick to listen. Slow to speak. (Sometimes out of necessity if you don’t know how to speak.)