Back in good old Silicon Valley the only drama to be found in my life was on CSI, Grey's Anatomy or Desperate Housewives. Here, if I want drama, all I need to do really is to step out of the apartment complex. Some days, if we are lucky, all we need to do is to step out of the house.
Jojo Is A Star!
Most Chinese don't take young infants out. We are fairly brazen, taking Jojo out for walks and even to a Honda dealership. I had no choice that day--Juju was napping and I didn't want to leave two kids with Auntie. I didn't want to overwhelm her and burn her out in the first month.
We took him in his infant car seat, itself a rare sight here. Here kids sit on their parents' laps when traveling in cars. Seating kids in children's car seats is too foreign a concept as of now. When Mr. Mouse Potato left the infant seat on the ground, a swarm of salesgirls surrounded him, poking him here and there, making all sorts of comments. They were extremely concerned with his eczema and asked why his neck was all red (from folds of fat chafing each other). I told them that his skin gets better when he's inside with air conditioning, upon which they then asked if such a young infant can coexist in the same room with air conditioning. Most Chinese believe that air conditioning makes infants sick, even when it's 90 degrees out.
As the girls were admiring Jojo, one of them took out a camera and took a picture of him with all the girls. He put on a quite good show: he cooed and ahhed with them. The girls were simply enamored with him. One of them kept taking pictures of him with her phone camera. In fact, they were so busy with him we couldn't get anybody to answer our questions about the Honda Odyssey, which is unfortunately doesn't not come with retractable seat belts. However, it's a much slicker and smaller version of the US Odyssey. Man I need a car! Not being able to go anywhere is driving me nuts.
Je M'appelle ...
Most young people in urban China have an English name. It's one of the few ways for them to show their creativity, but sometimes some of these misguided youngsters have rather ill-advised names. For example, at Mr. MP's office, Apple, the receptionist, shares a cubicle with another lass named Cookie.
What? They Are Both Yours???
Back in Silicon Valley, if people saw me with both Juju and Jojo, they would naturally assume that the tykes are siblings and that I am their one and only mom. Here, since I usually put Jojo in an Ergo Baby Carrier, people naturally assume that he's mine. Then they see Juju bouncing around, and inevitably they point to her, and ask, what, she's yours, too? Sometimes they become too engrossed checking out Jojo to notice (because such a young baby's rarely seen in public) Juju, but when they do, I can literally see their eyes pop and I can feel their irrepressible urge to ask me how I managed to evade the one-child policy. Are Mr. MP and I only children ourselves? Are we ethnic minorities? Are we just so filthy rich that it doesn't matter? Did we pay a hefty fine to register Jojo legally? What, how did I even get maternity leave for an illegal second pregnancy? I usually answer in fairly evasive terms. Better illegal Chinese children than legal Chinese American ones. It's not a good idea to stand out and it feels good to finally fit in within the community, well, sort of.
And Some Have None
Many westerners are extremely misinformed. For example, most people don't really have a solid understanding of the wisdom and the practicality of China's one-child policy before bashing it. Once you've lived in China, you start to see how it makes sense. I would say the government has been very successful at this particular campaign. It's almost as if it's in the air we breathe and the water we drink--once you are here, you really do lose your desire to sire children. If I had any lingering hope of having a third, within the first week of getting here I almost regretted ever having any.
Beijing, as modern is it is, is just not a kid-friendly place. Most public places such as malls and restaurants are not stroller-accessible. Within city center there are very few parks to take the kids around and public bathrooms are not only nasty but most of them only have squatters (where it's just a trough on the ground and you need to squat to use it; could be handy for toddlers, though). If, say, I wanted to breastfeed...scratch that thought--I laughed out loud just thinking about it. I would be flashing tens if not hundreds of passerby's in almost all the places we typically visit.
There are very few choices of minivans sold in China. I have yet to see a double stroller. There is a reason people don't take very young children out. Buses and the subway get so crowded. When the subway train pulls into the station, people swarm to the entrance and start pushing and jostling each other just for a shot at getting a seat. A child Juju or Jojo's size would be squashed to death. Taxis don't always put on air conditioning, so traveling with small children is simply torture for everyone involved. Sometimes I think the one-child policy is almost merciful. It's no surprise that many young people my generation or younger simply opt not to have children at all. To have one child here is an adventure; to have two is extraordinary; to have three is simply unheard of; to have more, people simply assume that you are an uneducated country bumpkin herding your brood around to evade the reproductive police.
Expat Life, Beijing Style
When I was a small child living in Beijing in the 80's, to see a foreigner is more exciting than going to the zoo (for me personally that is). There were very few foreigners then and if you invited one to your home, your neighbors will start talking and your local community committee will come knocking. Nowadays most jaded Beijingers don't need blink at the sight of a foreigner. There are so many expats in Beijing now that they have formed their own little world, a world where the children grow up extremely privileged and where they never really have to learn the language or get to know a real Chinese family.
Yesterday I went to a ladies' luncheon hosted by an American gal. Most of them were nice, but I have gotten the sense from a few that just because they live in China does not mean they don't look down upon the colored race. Also, most expats only come for a few years, maybe for a three to five year assignment, just to try their hands at playing the new "Wild West" in the East. They live in their European style villas, hire a Filipino maid and a Chinese ayi, have a full-time driver, and send their kids to these silly international schools. Aside from sharing the bad air, the traffic jams and the contaminated water with the locals, they have nothing to do with the real China. Once they are inside their villas, they filter the air and the water with their expensive equipment and shop at the local imports store. Most of these expat kids would probably live an upper middle lifestyle back in their home countries, but here, they are serviced as if they are royalty.
From my tone you can tell I have somewhat mixed feelings about these expats. We are pseudo expats ourselves and perhaps I am jealous of the real ones with the luxe packages because we are poorer than they. Maybe I'm just sour grapes because we can't send Juju and Jojo to international schools not just because they are ridiculously expensive but also because they are just too damn far. The bilingual preschool started by these Harvard educators cost more than $16,000 a year; the International School of Beijing charges $20,000 a year. I thought we had left all that ridiculousness when we left Silicon Valley, but I guess things can be just as out of hand here.
From these expats I’ve also learned to be more forgiving to people in the US who don’t seem so friendly to minorities. I remember being frustrated that we seemed to have a hard time making friends in the US and other Asian moms on kimchimamas have voiced that white moms don’t seem to want to invite non-white moms to events. Now I have a better understanding why that happens. Here in China, it is probably difficult for foreigners to befriend upper middle to upper class Chinese. Take my ex-colleagues for example; they are the ones whom these business people really want to get to know, but they are fairly wary of hobnobbing with foreigners during their personal time. Cultural and language differences make these interactions different, and most of these Chinese are fulfilled by interacting with other Chinese already anyway. Here, I am very thankful that our family appears as Chinese as the next, well, except the part where we have two children. It’s almost weird to reach out to other expats—I feel as though I am an imposter, trying to befriend foreigners in the land of my own people. Maybe I’m still struggling to hold on to our former life; sometimes I feel as though these expats don’t really ‘get’ China and that makes me feel frustrated. On the other hand, maybe it’s all in my head and I should just befriend whoever provides good conversation, which is what I desperately need after two weeks of staying home everyday trying to potty train Juju.
No comments:
Post a Comment