Kristin Bair O'Keeffe: Writer. Mom. Teacher. Traveler.

A Bunch of Things I'm Thinking About Today

This morning (Sunday, May 9, Mother's Day), I'm thinking about...

• How when I don't blog for a few days, I get into this weird state of mind that makes me not blog for longer...and longer...and then two or three weeks pass and I realize, oh, crap, two or three weeks have passed since my last blog installment. So...sorry I haven't posted since (gasp!) April 25. I've been writing (novel #2), teaching (yay!), reading student work (missed this), momming (my favorite), planning the upcoming reading (Out Loud! on May 16), and writing some more.

• How much I love how things are moved from place to place in Shanghai. Some like this:

Others like this:

• It's Mother's Day! I love celebrating mummahood and nearly melted when Tully gave me this after school on Friday. She made it herself:

 

• #28 at the massage place around the corner from my house who gave me the most incredible Chinese head & neck massage last night. A life-changing massage. An oh-my-god-I'm-never-getting-up-from-this-table massage.

• How sometime in the middle of the massage, I decided I want to bring #28 home to live with me, buy a massage table and install it in my living room so that at any given moment, I can hop up on it for more life-changing body work. (Let's all bow our heads and pray that #28 does not quit, get fired, or move back to his home province any time soon.)
  

• The fact that I paid a mere $11.50 for this life-changing 1 hour massage and how when I someday move back to the U.S. I will not have these weekly life-changing massages for less than $20.

• Chinglish. It's everywhere in Shanghai. Weird, head-shaking, sometimes embarrassing, sometimes silly translations of Chinese into English. I showed you an example of it in my April 25 post and shortly after that, the NYTimes wrote an article about it (great minds, same track). (Read the NYTimes articles here.) And then, just days after I read in the NYTimes about how Shanghai is trying to get rid of all the Chinglish around town, I see this brand new sign hung above the brand new hospital building down the street from my house. And I laugh. I'm pretty sure Chinglish is here to stay.

• Entrances and exits. I like this one:

• Gouqi (Níngxià gǒuqǐ) & chrysanthemum tea. Love the stuff. And just found out the gouqi berry (also know as goji berry and wolfberry) is amazingly good for you. Check it out at Wiki.

• Out Loud! (the reading series I run in Shanghai) takes place on Sunday, May 16, at 4:00. Steve Thomas and Barb Shaya (two terrific Shanghai writers) are headlining. If you're in our neck of the woods, come on down to the Glamour Bar on the 16th. (More info here.)

• I just finished reading The Calligrapher's Daughter by Eugenia Kim & loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Slowed down near the end so I could make it last longer. (More info about it here.)

• And I'm looking forward to reading Steve Almond's new book, Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life. Mostly because Steve Almond could probably stand perfectly still in an empty room and I'd still fall on the floor laughing. He's funny.

• And finally, because I'm a mom and today is mom's day...a few cute pics of Tully.

(Whew! Thank god that non-blogging feeling is gone.)

Sunday Morning at Zhongshan Park in Shanghai

This morning it was two things that it hasn't been for a good while in Shanghai:

1. fairly warm (60 degrees or so)
2. sunny (FINALLY! YAY! YIPPEE!)

So as early as possible (about 9:30 a.m.), we packed up Tully, a ball, some treats, and other bits and pieces and headed to our favorite park in Shanghai: Zhongshan Park. Zhongshan Park is special for two important reasons:

1. You are allowed to play on the grass. (You are not in most parks here. Cops chase you off as soon as your big toe touches the first blade.)
2. There are NO bicycles or motorbikes allowed in the park so you don't have to be afraid of being run over.

Now if you've never been to a park in China, you might not know that parks are used for all kinds of recreational activities...not just hanging out in the grass or playing frisbee or taking a walk. In every park (well, every park I've been in) folks are dancing to music played on a CD player, doing tai chi, playing mah jong, singing with a microphone and speakers (um, rather loudly), playing cards, walking backwards, flying kites, and all kinds of other fun things. It's great.

But instead of telling you about it, take a look for yourself. I'm going to go take a nap.

These are the rules for visitors, posted at the entrance in English as well as in Chinese. Take special note of Rule #2, which states "Ethic and moral codes should be duly honored. Visitors are expected not to urinate or shit, post ads or posters, and write or carve around in the park..." (So noted. Today no one in our party urinated or shit in the park.)

This guy is writing Chinese characters in water with that long-handled brush.Cool, huh? Not sure what it says, but the writing is beautiful.

Doing tai chi with one stick on your head is impressive...

Doing tai chi with TWO sticks on your head is amazing.

Incredible.

A'singing & a'playing...

Have music, will travel.

Pretty, huh?

Mah jong, anyone?

The mah jong coach.

The knitting group examines a shawl.

Knitting on a rock in the sunshine. What could be better?

The carousel.

May I have this dance?

"Let's go fly a kite...up to the highest height..."

The rather cranky kite salesman. (Guess selling them just isn't as much fun as flying them.)

The Popcorn Man...makes it & sells it right there.

Like most kids in Shanghai, Tully loves Haibao (the mascot for the 2010 World Expo, opening here in Shanghai on May 1).

Sweet Tully relaxing on a rock.

THE END

Octopus For Lunch: Notes About My Daughter's English/Chinese School in Shanghai

A month or so ago, my two-year-old daughter started preschool at an English/Chinese school around the corner from our apartment. Her class--made up of Western kids, Chinese kids, and kids of mixed origins--has one American teacher (who speaks very good Chinese), one American teacher (who speaks decent Chinese), and one Chinese teacher/ayi (who speaks no English at all). As you can imagine, Tully is speaking Chinese better and more comfortably than  she was prior to starting school.

"Zai jian," she calls to the guard as we pass through the gate at school. Good-bye.

"Mei you," she says when I ask if she has something in her mouth. I don't have anything.

Every morning when we first arrive, each child has to visit the nurse who sits at a desk in the schoolyard. Now that she's learned the ropes, Tully trots right over, stands in line, holds still while the nurse takes her temperature, and opens her mouth and extends her hands for inspection when instructed to do so. All, of course, in Chinese. The nurse speaks very quickly and unless I ask her to slow down, I don't have a clue what she's saying to me in Mandarin. Tully? She gets it the first time around.

Though there is an administrator who speaks fluent English, the principal, the nurse, and all support staff of the school speak only Chinese. I love all the stuff Tully is learning/absorbing by being in a school with such diversity, but from time to time I come up against some challenging cultural differences.

Like at the Spring/Easter party. Guess what kind of candy was hidden in the play-yard for the toddlers to find and eat? Wrapped hard candy. You know, like sour balls. The perfect size hard candy to choke a running toddler. The kind of candy most parents back home in the U.S. wouldn't dream of passing out to a bunch of energetic, don't-hold-still-for-a-moment two-year-olds. Here? All the Chinese toddlers I know eat hard candy. (That day, I let Tully find the candy. Then I confiscated it. Then I made sure her teachers weren't allowing it in the classroom. They weren't.)

But perhaps most interestingly is the daily snack/lunch menu at school. Yesterday? Sweet and sour steak with fried basil. Today? Braised octopus.

I honestly have no idea what meat floss is (see Monday's menu), but from what the teachers said, none of the kids ate much of it.

Writing The Far-Flung Life: The Life and Times of Expat Writers

Here's the truth. We expat writers have some pretty hilarious, tres bizarro, mega-heart-breaking, uber-adventurous, heads-bowed enlightening, truth-revealing, "no effing way" stories to tell.

We could begin right at this exact moment telling those stories and not be finished until...well, until never. And the entire time we were telling them, you (our audience) would be bent over double with laughter, sobbing like babies, or saying "No effing way" over and over again.

After all, we brave, crazy, passionate expat writers not only travel to exotic locales for spits-and-spots of experience. We actually pack up our homes, our families, our hearts, our underwear, and our bottles of Imodium and MOVE to these exotic locales. We say, "Yeah, bring it on! I want to live in this place...as uncomfortable and confused as I am right now...and I want to...I want to..."

"You want to what?" you ask.

"I want to figure out who I am in relation to this new place. Because I was pretty damn clear about who I was in my home country, but here? Here? This place where I stand out like a sore thumb? I don't have a clue who I am or how I fit in."

"Anything else?" you ask.

"Yeah, I want to KNOW this place. Not just a little, but a lot. As much as an outsider can, I guess."

"That's a mighty tall order," you say in a John Wayne drawl because maybe you are an American.

"Yeah, but I've got a while."

Then we expat writers live in these locales for...one, two, three, four, even ten years...witnessing cultural clashes, cultural enlightenments, medicine-resistant illnesses, language conundrums, awe-inspiring kindnesses, life-changing revelations, strange fish-stomping deaths, unfamiliar burial rites, and perhaps most importantly, everyday life. We eat funky foods and compare this to that. We stare, get stared at, drop chopsticks, make friends, make mistakes, and finally, let the old shift as the new seeps in.

And of course we write about it. Because that's what we do. Because like all writers, we are obsessed with getting our stories onto the page...with working life out in pen and ink (or via the clickety-click).

But something else happens as well.

We start to change. We look in the mirror and say, "Who the hell are you?" We thumb through the myriad of stamps in our passports and say, "Who the hell am I?" We study the addresses on our mail and say, "Home?"

Because at some point...some critical point...we stop feeling like citizens of a single country...and instead feel like citizens of...well...the world.

How effing corny and wonderful and confusing and unlikely is that? There's no precedent for being a "citizen of the world." As far as I know, there's no "citizen of the world" anthem. No "citizen of the world" constitution. No "citizen of the world" rule book. No "citizen of the world" flag. There aren't any traditional "citizen of the world" costumes or sports clubs to cheer for.

Just what holidays does a citizen of the world celebrate? Tet? Chinese New Year? Passover? Christmas? And if Christmas, Santa Claus or Sinterklaas?

So once we feel this way, what do we do?

Well, you know, we're writers--expat writers-- so we do what we always do. We keep telling stories. And we find ways of sharing those stories with you (our audience)...wherever you are...back in our "home" countries...here in our adopted countries...or in the countries we touch down in along the way.

And hopefully, you (our beloved audience) read them.

_______

Thanks to Francesco Marino and djcodrin for the digital artwork.

How (Not) to Talk to Adoptive Families: Part II

On July 27, 2009, I wrote Part I of "How (Not) to Talk to Adoptive Families."

Unfortunately, here's Part II:

A month or so ago I was visiting preschools in Shanghai, looking for a good fit for my two-year-old daughter Tully. I wanted what all moms and dads want for their child's first school: a warm, creative, loving atmosphere with fun, attentive, smart teachers and a safe environment in which to thrive.

At one particular school that I'll not name here, I met with the staffing director, a Shanghainese woman named Katrina*.

After a tour of the school, Katrina and I sat down in the office to fill out paperwork and talk. Because the toddler classroom was located on the second floor of the building and featured a balcony, I wasn't interested in the school. Big safety issues. But I filled out an information form anyway: protocol.

Next to the question "What is your child's nationality?"I wrote Vietnamese.

"Vietnamese?" Katrina said, reading over my shoulder.

"Yes," I said.

"You are...?"

"From the United States."

 "And your husband is from?" Katrina glanced at the form. "Ireland."

"Yes," I said.

Katrina waited for me to explain. I didn't. I tried to move the conversation to the necessary topic: whether or not I was interested in sending Tully to school there.

But Katrina? Nope, Katrina was not ready to let go of the question of Tully's nationality.

"I don't understand," she said. "How is your daughter Vietnamese if you are American and your husband is Irish?"

[Quick pause to explain that while Katrina is from Shanghai, her English is excellent. There wasn't a language problem going on.]

"We adopted Tully from Vietnam," I said after a long silence during which I tried to decide whether to answer or leave abruptly. In retrospect, I should have left abruptly.

Katrina and her husband, it turns out, had talked a lot about adopting a child themselves. Of course, in China, most couples are still only allowed to have one child (although this is changing a little). So in the end, adoption was not a possibility.

"Besides," Katrina went on to explain, "I don't believe you can love an adopted child as much as you love 'your own child.'"

See?

Should have left abruptly.

Without going into the details of every one of my responses, here's a quick list of the things Katrina said to me over the next (very long) 5 minutes:

• If you get very angry and beat your child, "your own" child will understand that you did it because you love him. Your adopted child will always think it's his fault.

• Does your daughter [pause] "look" Vietnamese?

• You can't love an adopted child as much as you love "your own child." (She said this a number of times.)

• I don't understand...why don't you have a child of "your own"?

There were a lot of issues buzzing around this conversation, including a wide cultural gap that I couldn't have narrowed no matter what I'd said. Adoption isn't common in China, and many people are bewildered by the concept. But Katrina? She's a pretty smart, educated woman with a lot of interaction with the expat community. Even if these thoughts were in her head, she should have known to keep her trap shut.

"I have a child of my own," I told her before I left the school.

"Oh," she said, getting visibly excited, "you have a child besides your daughter? A child of your own?"

[OMG]

"No, I have one child," I said, "I have my daughter."

"I don't understand," she said. "You just said you have a child of your own."

"Exactly," I said.

_______

*Katrina's name has been changed.

St. Patrick's Day in Shangai: Parades, Pints, & Irish Poets

And so goes another Paddy's Day in Shanghai...complete with the wonderful, weird, cross-cultural parade that is half-Irish/half-Chinese and (thanks to the Shanghai International Literary Festival) a couple of terrific Irish poets straight from Cork.

It was grand.

I'm often more entranced by the folks watching the parade in Shanghai than the parade itself. Take this pajama-clad attendee, for instance, much more interesting than the green dragon.

And this woman in the window...obviously wondering, just what the heck is going on out there on Yandong Lu?

 

Love this picture with the Irish flag.

And Tully's shamrock...  Billy Ramsell...kick-ass Irish poet.

Alan Titley reading at the Glamour Bar.

  And poet Liz O'Donoghue singing a beautiful Irish tune.

We Pause in the Regularly Schedule Programming for...A TRIP TO BORNEO

Whoop! Whoop!

Those of you who've been looking for the regularly scheduled blog entries (Travel Tuesday: Writing the Far-Flung Life, Women Rock Wednesday, etc.) and my normal musings on writing, China, life, etc., thanks for checking in.

But...right now I'm lying on the beach in Borneo (well, actually, right now I'm in my hotel room, but a few hours ago, I was on the beach, and in another hour or so, I'll be on the beach again. And, of course, with a two-year-old there is much "lying on the beach" going on...mostly I'm chasing Tully, digging in the sand, chasing Tully...get the picture. It's lovely.)

Last week we were in China suffering a case of "too much, too many" (too much noise, too many people, too much traffic, too much smog, too many ____). So before one of us (hubby or I) began to exhibit bad expat behavior, we did what it takes to love our second home (China) again...we got out. It's like that sometimes.

Nothing a week in Borneo won't cure. :)

Here's a peek at our current digs.

Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

The South China Sea.

Ooh, this is gooooddddd.

Who's ready for the beach?

Travel Tuesday: Writing the Far-Flung Life (Chinese New Year: The World's Largest Human Migration)

What are we doing in China this week?

Writing?

Always.

Practicing our characters?

Heck no! We're getting ready for Chinese New Year...the national holiday when nearly every single person in China travels to her home province for the celebration of the lunar new year...yep, nearly every single person...which makes this holiday the world's largest human migration. (I'm going to head up to the train ticket office up my street tomorrow and take some photos...the line is crazy long!)

Even though the New Year doesn't officially begin until Saturday, February 14, folks have already started to leave Shanghai by the trainload. Believe it or not, something like 25.63 million passengers will leave or come to Shanghai this year by rail, plane, bus, or ship (Shanghai Daily). 

25.63 million people.

Want to join them? Maybe by train? Here...try this one. Looks comfy, huh? You know, for a cross-country trip in China.

 

Or maybe this train?

While you absorb those numbers and stare at those photos, let me remind you writers out there that holidays, festivals, and rituals are terrific fodder for articles, essays, and stories. If you're writing about a far-flung place, investigate.

Here in China, as we move closer and closer to the Year of the Tiger, I'll be sharing a good bit about the celebrations, rituals, and traditions go along with it.

But right now, I'm going to go hang my New Year decorations (including a tiger on the door). Photos to come.

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Far-flung writers: Where are you living? Traveling to? What rituals, celebrations, traditions take your attention?

Travel Tuesday: Writing the Far-Flung Life (Me + New Place = ?)

Okay, all you far-flung writers, need a jumping off point for a new essay? Here goes:

When you:

• are transplanted in a new country
• are launched out of your comfort zone
• are separated from those you love by expansive oceans and thousands of miles
• are incapable of communicating with those around you because you don't speak the language
• spend minutes/hours/days pantomiming even the simplest nouns (and feel like a cross between an intrepid explorer and a complete ass every time you do it)
• struggle to interpret new cultural cues

you inevitably ask the question...

Me + (New Place) = ?

You can't help it. It's human nature. We're driven to define ourselves in relation to our surroundings. Especially those of us who are writers.

The first time I asked myself this question was back in October 2006, about six months after I'd moved from the United States to Shanghai, China. I was back in the U.S. on my first trip home and was feeling completely overwhelmed by the number of choices I faced in the cereal aisle at the grocery store and a number of other things. I wrote about it here (at my old blog).

Since then, I've mulled over this very question again and again...verbally and in my head...but I haven't yet (re-)tackled it on the page. It's time...I feel it coming. The distillation of who I am in China.

And you? Have you tackled this question in your writing?

Me + (New Place) = ?

If not, give it a shot. It has all the makings of a great essay.

If so, what was your answer?

Travel Tuesday: Writing the Far-Flung Life (Finding Your Own Chicken Man)

When you're writing about a far-flung life, your job is to get readers to see what you see. Remember, many readers have never been to the place or had the experience you are describing...and many never will. So...lure them in. 

How?

The #1 Way to Lure Readers In...

• Write About The Things That Interest You: Don't worry about trying to figure out what readers want to know. Follow your own heart...your own eye. If you're intrigued, your readers will be intrigued. If you're not intrigued, readers will close your book/article/essay halfway through and not pick it up again. Horror of all horrors.

(Example: If you're traveling in Milan, Italy, you may be captivated by the spires on the Duomo. Lots of folks are. If so, dig in and have at it. But maybe you don't give two hoots about the spires [or anything else] on the Duomo. Maybe you're more intrigued by the wacky folks who like to get the 1.22 million pigeons in the piazza to land on their heads for photo opps or the cranky old woman who sold you a strawberry tart. If that's the case, write about the pigeon people or the cranky old woman. Forget the Duomo and its spires.)

As for me, I'm rarely intrigued by the "big stuff." Sure, Shanghai's Oriental Pearl Tower is cool and interesting, and yup, the World Expo is coming to our fair city in May, but I'm drawn to smaller moments. Like the Chicken Man! He's one of my favorite characters in my neighborhood, and just this morning, my daughter and I ran into him on our street. (Okay, okay, I admit it, we were out looking for him...as we often are.) We were lucky enough to happen upon him just as a customer was picking out his chicken. Check it out.

The Chicken Man on the left. A discerning customer on the right.

"How about this chicken?" says the Chicken Man.

"No, I like this chicken," says customer, taking matters (and a chicken) into his own hands.

"Why does this crazy laowai (me) follow me around Shanghai taking pictures of me?" says the Chicken Man. "She must have thousands of pictures of me now."

And the Chicken Man kills and defeathers the chicken right there and then.

I tell ya what...he's good at it, too. He can kill and defeather a chicken faster than I can pick out a package of drumsticks at the grocery store.

This is the hard part...friends looking on.

Ta-da! Dinner!

WRITERS CHALLENGE: I haven't yet written a formal piece about the Chicken Man, but I know that eventually he will work his way into an essay or memoir. Your challenge this week? Find your own Chicken Man. In whatever place you're writing about, choose a person who intrigues you. Then write about him/her. A paragraph...a page...whatever it takes to see him/her clearly.