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When we arrived in Shanghai, China it was a big move for myself and my family. It helped alot to be able to write down our experiences and e-mail them to our friends and family. They all gave us a lot of much needed support during that time. After a few months of "adjustment", it became commonplace for me to write updates. Here is an arichive of e-mails sent before creating this website and updates after the website was created.
Family Photo Album:
E-mail to our Friends and Family 1/25/07
Hello All!
Where do I start? Overall we had a pretty good week with a few major bumps.
Sophie started preschool and absolutely loves it! She’s coming home talking about Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, Cubeism, Renaissance Period. Yes, it’s blowing my mind as well. This coming from the girl that has never talked about learning (only playing) at school. The bummer is the drive! The traffic here is horrible. I spend 3 hours per day in the van with Mr. Linn on a good day taking and picking up Sophie from school. Her bus doesn’t come out this far so we have to drive her. Mr. Linn, who I really like (just doesn’t speak any English, but loves to laugh) was trying to cheer me up playing Elton John and the Eagles every day. I finally got Scott to bring home a CD and burned my ipod list to a disk which has changed everything for me. I haven’t heard good music in a month. Of course the first song is “Bad Day” by Daniel Powter ( I thought only appropriate) which turns out Mr. Linn loves! It was hysterical. But Sophie is talking to and helping Ayi cook and clean while she is teaching Sophie Chinese. Sophie is also saying Ni Hao (hello), Zai jian (good-bye) and Xie xie (thank you) to Mr. Linn. School has done wonders for her at the moment.
Sean on the other hand is having a lot of problems in his school. He invited me to lunch then asked me to go to the playground with him. I thought this was odd because in all of his years at school (yes, I know only about 4 if you count preschool), he has never asked me to lunch much less to join him on the playground. It turns out he’s been eating and playing by himself and has never said anything to us!!! He tried to play soccer (which he loves) with the other kids and was basically kicked off the field for not being rough enough! The other kids called him a “scaredy cat” which was just the icing on the cake. Soccer here is more like football at home. Anyway, I got on the phone with his teacher who is now trying to help Sean meet some nice boys that are more on his level. I’m going to give him 3 months to acclimate then take it from there but it’s literally breaking my heart.
Then my computer e-mail and internet connection was lost for 4 days, I got lost in Carrefour and the Satellite TV went out. Now, losing all contact with the outside world when e-mail is down is a much bigger deal here then it is at home where I can just pick up the phone. This put us all in terrible moods. Anyway that was fixed yesterday THANK GOD! I needed to go to Carrefour to buy Balloons for Sean’s birthday, but I went to a different store. Mr. Linn dropped me off at the Dogs. These are huge dogs in kennels that are for sale (I believe to have as pets but could also be to eat, I don’t know yet and probably will never explore that one!) so when he dropped me off I made a note to come back to the dogs when I found the balloons. I found the balloons, about 3 people cut in front of me in line to pay (this it typical) and then I went looking for the dogs. I could not find them anywhere (I think they moved them on me). So, in a little panic I found a woman and asked her where the dogs were. Sh e of course had no idea what I was saying so I started to say “woof, woof”. Now, in a city of 22 million people and I knowing only about 3 of those people I figured what have I got to loose by making a complete ass out of myself in Carrefour? This was bad but what was worse was she still didn’t know what I was saying (in retrospect I should have started singing “Who Let the Dogs Out” ha ha little humor). Long story short, I finally found Mr. Linn sitting at the top of an escalator. I think he was getting worried about me. The Satellite is still not fixed. Too much trouble at this point.
So, Scott took me out to lunch yesterday, it was very nice. We were walking down the street and these 2 older men wanted to shine his shoes (they were carrying little boxes with their supplies). Scott said no thank you and they kept hounding us. Scott told me keep up and just ignore them (he was getting irritated) and I was starting to laugh. So I looked down and noticed one of the men had intentionally placed a huge glob of white polish on his shoes while he was walking. I then lost it and started laughing while telling Scott to look at his shoes. Meanwhile Scott is saying “just keep walking and ignore them”. Scott finally looked at his shoes and of course as only Scott can do started swearing. I was still laughing while he started polishing his shoe when I noticed the other guy did the same thing to me. Then it wasn’t so funny. They wanted 200 RMB for their services ($25.00). Scott gave them 10 RMB ($1.25) and sent them on their way. I haven’t laughed that hard in a very long time!
Scott and I start Chinese lessons next week. I can’t wait. I’ve started running again (boring because I don’t have my running partner) and I really need to join some expat groups which is next on my list. Our shipment will be here next week. Thank goodness for that, the kids need their toys and I need everything else (hopefully I can send pictures next week). I had to have a health exam to get residency because my Visa will expire next week. This was very interesting, men and women sharing the same changing and exam rooms separated only by a curtain. While I’m getting a breast exam a man is getting his eyes checked with a curtain between us! I then proceeded to walk into a dressing room with a man changing because he forgot to lock the door! Get me out of here!!!!! Relax, I made it and all is well. Scott and Sean have to get their hair cut this weekend. Should I send them out to the street?
Ok, that’s enough. I wanted to thank everyone for your e-mails. I love getting them!
You’d think I’d run out of things to talk about at this point but as you can tell never a dull moment!
Have a great day! Jennifer